A piece of sport

A sports play is a play by the Austrian writer and Nobel Prize winner for literature, Elfriede Jelinek .

content

The theme of the play is sport , with all its dark sides and negative consequences: violence and mass hysteria. This piece is primarily about sport as another form of war , sport as a mass phenomenon, and as the "only sanctioned occurrence of violence", sport as a "metaphor for things under which violence creeps in", about the masses, entirely in the spirit of Elias Canetti ( mass and power ), and their relationship to power. For the author, sport represents a modern form of war, a continuation of war by other means. Behind the characters in the play there are some real athletes, e.g. B. the bodybuilder Andreas Münzer , who swallowed unbelievable amounts of anabolic steroids and died because he wanted to emulate his idol Arnold Schwarzenegger too much, but some interpreters also seem to have "immortalized" Jelinek himself in the role of "Elfi Elektra ". The decisive dramaturgical plot carrier that pervades the whole piece is the theater choir , which, based on the chorus in classical Greek tragedy, conjures and accuses the dangers of sport and the disappearance of the individual in the crowd in its chanting text blocks. The soldiers appear in jeans and baseball caps, and the Greek choirs with Adidas , Reebok or Nike on their feet announce the latest sports results to the audience. In sportswear, the uniform celebrates its final triumphs.

The few characters besides the many Greek choirs are called “Man”, “Woman”, “The Sacrifice” or, as the author's alter ego, “Elfi Elektra”. The piece begins with a mother's lament for her son who died in sports - it becomes a basic theme that runs through the entire text in different constellations: it is about the relationship between mother and son, daughter and father, both shaped by the Death. This tragic parent-child motif is accentuated and exaggerated by the monologues of Elfi Elektra. In addition to this leitmotif, Jelinek also makes the violence visually visible through opposing screaming choir groups. The stage direction at the beginning of the play is interesting: “The author doesn't give many instructions, she has learned that by now. Do what you want. "This instruction is a direct answer to the director Castorf , who staged" Raststätte or you all do it "in Hamburg. He caused a scandal in this production by putting an oversized sex doll with Jelinek's face on the stage. The doll only spoke confused words and could not be stopped. However, the brief stage directions above are followed by two pages of instructions.

premiere

The premiere took place on January 23, 1998 at the Vienna Burgtheater under the direction of the German eccentric Einar Schleef . Elfriede Jelinek had expressly requested Schleef as a director, because he was considered the "master of the choirs" due to the special form of choral theater that he had developed over the years and seemed to her to be the most suitable for the many choir passages. It was a monster production with well over 100 actors, including an 80-voice speaking choir and a small orchestra . Einar Schleef once again exhausted the entire apparatus of a theater house with his staging. His kneeling in front of Claus Peymann at the premiere on the open stage also became legendary - Schleef wanted to force the playing time to be extended until after 11 p.m., which he succeeded in doing for the premiere: around 11 p.m., when the play still didn't seem to be over, Schleef stepped up to the stage ramp, kneeled down in front of the Burgtheater director Peymann, who was watching in a box, and asked him - to the general laughter of the audience - with a pleading voice to be allowed to continue playing until after 11 p.m. (at the Burgtheater, according to the collective agreement, all performances must be up to be over at the latest 11 p.m., otherwise it costs expensive overtime). The visibly embarrassed Peymann granted this and even promised to pay for the overtime from his own private pocket.

Ilona Jelinek, Elfriede's mother, attended the premiere, which lasted until 1 a.m., despite her 93 years of age.

In 1998 Einar Schleef received the Kainz Medal from the City of Vienna for his direction . The production was considered to be one of the highlights of the Claus Peymann era and the culmination of his artistic directorship.

Cast of the premiere

Director: Einar Schleef

Assistant director: Susan Todd

Dramaturgy: Rita Thiele

Costume advice (head of the Burgtheater's costume workshops): Annette Beaufays

Leading actors: Elisabeth Augustin , Martin Brambach , Heinz Frölich , Rudolf Melichar , Franz Morak , Hubertus Petroll , Dierk Prawdzik , Elisabeth Rath , Einar Schleef , Hermann Schmid , Julia von Sell , Bibiana Zeller

Choir: Matthias Bade, Herbert Bamberger, Constanze Baruschke, Thomas Bäumel, Shani Ben-Canar, Krista Birkner, Paulo Bitencourt , Andreas Bittl, Vera Blaha, Andreas Büchele, Claudia Bühlmann , Werner Chalubinski, Thomas Clemens , Roberta Cortese, Claudia Durstberger, Christian Ebner, Ulrich Eh, Hartmut Ehler, Florian Emmerich, Susanna Ensthaler, Jörg Espenkott, Eva Fichte, Heinz Filar, Franz Frickel, Isolde Friedel, Krum Galabov, Anton Gisler, Kai-Peter Gläser , Susanne Göhr, Ralf Grawe, Markus Haase, Margit Hadrawa, Gerhard Hänfling, Christine Hartenthaler, Siegfried Hasler, Brigitte Haupt, Thorsten Heidel , Swantje Henke, Zoe Herman, Gertraud Hierner, Andreas Hirsch, Aina Holtz, Konrad Huber, Waltraut Kamilarov, Karin Kofler, Martin Kollin, Gabriele Konwalinka, Andrea Kranner, Thomas Künne, Tobias Kupka, Florian Kromer, Sebastian Kutsche, Walter Lenertz, Christian Lessiak , Dario Lindes , Markus von Lingen , Michel Lys, Ernst Meissl, Isabelle Eva Molnar , Hans-Ulrich Müller-Schwefe, Ha rald Nagl, Stefan Ortis, Christine Panuska, Gottfried Pesau, Johannes Pichelmayer, Beate M. Pomberger, Herbert Prasch, Axel Praun, Dierk Prawdzik, Inge Prosel, Sigrid Puxbaum, Sabine Reich, Hubertus Reim, Gerhard Ringhofer, Claudia Rohnefeld , Friedrich Rossipaul, Anneke Sarnau , Johannes Sawerthal, Inge Schlögelhofer, Claudia Schöll, Regina Schweighofer, Susanne Silverio, Brigitte Soraperra, Dolly Spoerhase, Brigitte Staar, Regina Stötzel, Robert Stuc, Irene Sturdik, Christoph Theußl , Rita Thiele , Martin Thoma, Susan Todd, Claudia Vallant , Vladimir Vassilev, Agata Vincze, Raimund Wallisch , Georg Wagner, Benno Wand, Silvia Weixelbaum, Marcus Widmann, Walter Wilke, Martin Woldan, Dagmar Zach, Herbert Zehetner, Helen Zellweger

Quotes from the piece text

“ The point of sport is that people no longer mind having to die because they seem to have been made for quick consumption anyway. "

“ Athletes are like soldiers , everyone puts their best in their jerseys. Olympia, on the other hand, is there to teach them to be a link in a machine. "

“ How are you going to make it clear to a young man that he should go to war if he has not played any sport beforehand ? "

literature

• Elfriede Jelinek: A piece of sport . Rowohlt, Reinbek 2004, ISBN 3-499-22593-X .

Reviews

• Irene Bazinger: Higher - Faster - Jelinek. Einar Schleef does world record theater. In: Jungle World , May 27, 1998. (online) ( Memento from June 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
• Reinhard Wengierek: My words are your blows. In: Die Welt , January 26, 1998. (online)

Individual evidence