20 years after its premiere at the Vienna Burgtheater, “Ein Sportstück” by Elfriede Jelinek has lost none of its topicality. On December 7th, 2018, the provocative and populism-critical play will celebrate its premiere in a production by Hermann Schmidt-Rahmer at UNI.T, the theatre of the UdK Berlin. Students of the third year of acting at the UdK Berlin will be on stage.
Image above: Ein Sportstück, Elfride Jelinek – Photo Daniel Nartschick
What happens when bodies start thinking for us? Mass phenomena, bodies and violence – in war as well as in sport – are the central themes of “A piece of sport”. It is about victors and vanquished, uniforms, accelerated bodies that become lustful weapons. “Ein Sportstück” is considered one of the central texts for post-dramatic theatre. Choirs and changing performers speak monologues of prototypes such as “mother” and “son”, “victim” and “perpetrator”, “man” and “woman”. They also speak of “the author”, who – in the style of Elfriede Jelinek – sarcastically reflects on her own writing and the human condition.
Elfriede Jelinek, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004, wrote “Ein Sportstück” (1998) against the background of the civil wars in Africa and the former Yugoslavia and the experience of the Holocaust in collective memory.2018 The subject matter still seems highly topical in view of the strengthening of identitary “movements” and right-wing populist governments from Bolsonaro to Trump.
Director Hermann Schmidt-Rahmer is an advocate of post-dramatic theatre with a strong emphasis on current socio-political references and has already staged plays by Jelinek at various German-language theatres. For his production “Rechnitz (Der Würgeengel)” by Elfriede Jelinek he was nominated for the theatre prize DER FAUST in 2012. Currently, “Volksverräter! follows Henrik Ibsen’s “Volksfeind” at the Volksbühne Berlin with another production by Hermann Schmidt-Rahmer.
Ein Sportstück
by Elfriede Jelinek
Ensemble project of the third year of acting at the UdK Berlin in cooperation with the study courses stage design and costume design
Director: Hermann Schmidt-Rahmer, Stage: Orli Baruch (stage design), Costumes: Viktoria Mechle and Emily Lisa Schumann (costume design), Video: Maria Kobylenko (course of studies visual communication), Choreography/Stunt coordinator: Alfred Hartung, Dramaturgy: Marion Hirte
Acting: Zainab Alsawah, Paulina Bittner, Manuel Bittorf, Franziskus Claus, Ruby Commey, Robert Flanze, Tim Freudensprung, Bineta Hansen, Maximilian Schimmelpfennig
WHEN?
Première on December 7th, 2018 at 7:30 pm
Further performances on December 8th, 9th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 19th and 20th, 7:30 pm
WHERE?
UNI.T – Theater of the UdK Berlin
Fasanenstraße 1B
10623 Berlin-Charlottenburg
COST?
Admission: 12 EUR, reduced 6 EUR
Pre-order: udkkasse@udk-berlin.de or +49 30 3185 2374 (AM)
Online ticket sales plus advance booking and system fee: www.reservix.de
