Who is Afraid of Elfriede Jelinek?Nine Remarks on Postdramatic,and Dramatic Theatre and One Side-Remark

First remark:what“postdramatic” does not mean

If these days you would believe some Cassandras among the folk of theater critics you might arrive at the conclusion that the “good” theatre,the more exigent theatre,theatre which has any worth,theatre with texts which are demanding concentration and patience of audiences—that this theater is terminally ill.It would probably die soon,were it not for some brave critics who have retained a sense of literary value and are fighting courageously.In a “last minute rescue”,they may still assure the survival of sound theatre practice by eradicating its sickness.

The disease has a name.Actually it is a many-headed Hydra,a monster,which appears in many shapes and under different denominations:often it is called “avant-garde”,sometimes “performance”,sometimes “postmodern”,or simply “experimental”.But the name of the season for this dangerous enemy of the people in theatre is clearly:postdramatic.The name in itself is sufficient to make shuddersome.Theater without drama?It sounds to them simply as contradictory in itself. “Isn’t theater just a drama?”is what they think.

Well,Don’t Panic!The term postdramatic theater is by no means identical to the term theater without texts.Postdramatic does NOT equal “post-textual”.Not all text written for the stage is“dramatic”.If some critics would read with more patience the books they criticize this point would never have been in doubt.In “Postdramatic Theatre”①I propose more precision and terminological clarity in the use of the term “drama” ,following in this respect grosso modo the dialectical approach by my admired teacher Peter Szondi in “Theory of Modern Drama”.As always when a new way of doing theatre meets with complete rejection or not-understanding there is a reality,which the polemical attitude toward the newcomer senses with a fine nose.What this reality is becomes evident as soon as you just take a moment to call before your inner eye the typical theatergoer of today.It is not probable that he or she,in order to go to the theatre,just rose from an armchair where he or she spent hours reading in the soft light of an old lamp,say,Cervantes’ “Don Quixote” or“Peace and War” by Tolstoy or a classic Chinese epic.Instead it is highly probable that he or she was working at a computer;that for entertainment he or she will more often watch films than theatre—perhaps in a cinema,but more and more often on DVD,and soon mostly in the internet.He or she probably ordered the ticket online;and he or she will get the daily news mostly from the net.The picture makes clear:contemporary theatre takes place in an environment deeply informed by media culture,a culture of images,a digital world.This shift is taking place before our very eyes,and it is an effect of a wider transformation from the concept of culture,which is mainly embodied in “works” to a concept of culture that finds expression mainly in doings,acts,in“performances” in the widest sense of the term.This general development was bound to have an effect on the status of the literary work—also in theatre.The people who create theatre are in the same situation there as their visitors.A well-known German feminist theatre group has chosen the name “She She Pop”.They wish not to make a secret of the fact that they know that their way of thinking,feeling and making experiences is deeply impregnated by pop culture more than by the tradition of literary culture（if you allow for the sake of brevity for once this misleading opposition）.One or the other may dislike this fact but it is a stubborn reality which will not go away because some of us would have liked culture to stay what it was.It is like the stone and the opinion in a little poem of Bertolt Brecht:

“Keep silent!

What do you think will change easier?

A stone

or your opinion about it?”②

Second remark:what postdramatic means

We give the name postdramatic to the contemporary landscape of theater not because there is no more “dramatic theatre” or any trace of drama.Not because there is no more performance or text that is dramatically organized.Such claims would actually be absurd given the multifold productions of dramatic theater in the big theater institutions of the world.We call this landscape postdramatic,because the drama with all its implications—which we would like to discuss on another occasionceased to be the guiding norm and principle of theater making.The specific merits and shortcomings of the new way of doing theatre are specific and demand other criteria than the judgement about staged drama.Whatever may be the final judgement—even the most fervent admirer of classical theatre will have to admit that postdramatic theatre found a number of highly creative ways of responding to the new reality.The artist Josef Beuys used the formula “widening the concept of art” （“Erweiterung des Kunstbegiffs”）.In a similar way we observe an equally radical widening of the concept of theatre.Theater today may take the shape of an installation with films and language-as in Heiner Goebbels’“Stifters Dinge”or “Eraritjaritjaka”;theatre may be a guided tour in a city reactivating the“processional performance space” （David Wiles③） which was relevant in the middle ages — as in certain works of Forced Entertainment or Rimini Protokoll.Theater may consist in a 22-hours reading of the Iliad as it happened in the theatre “Angelus Novus” in Vienna already in the 1980s.It may look like the so called “discourse theater” of René Pollesch or Andcompany&Co where more or less collective characters combine discourses of theory with only seemingly dialogical speech without any significant plot action.This short list could easily be extended.It shows with clarity that postdramatic theater is not a specific paradigm but the name of a wide range of practices.It begins at one end with a certain “de-dramatization” in classical stagings of plays and will cover the whole spectrum up to the extreme of a nonverbal performance without identifiable meaning.

Third remark:postdramatic theatre is often relational theatre

It is clear that we have to reconsider the famous “theatricality”of Michael Fried④in the light of postdramatic theatre practice.What the great art critic meant as a denunciation of certain works of modern art—under theatricality he understood their dependence on the beholder—proves to be an excellent description of postdramatic theatre trying to realize the specificity of theatre in general:its liveness.Theatre tries to create a live situation where a kind of communication becomes possible which in real society normally is not achieved.（In certain moments of the performances of Gob Squad this utopia of a moment of exceptional“relation” seems close,and it worked in China as in Germany.）

We find some terminological help also in contemporary art criticism.I propose to make use of Nicholas Bourriaud to understand better also theatre/performance in terms of what he called“relational aesthetics”⑤.There is today a strong current of “relational art”which has as theoretical horizon the sphere of inter-human communication and its social context as such rather than the affirmation of an autonomous and private symbolic space.Such works of art consist primarily in forming not so much an object or a space but the sphere of inter-subjectivity and communication itself.Viewed in this light with the rise of performance and postdramatic theatre it becomes obvious that we often have to do with relational practices,relational dramaturgy.The point in such “relational theatre” is the involvement of the audience in a communication which is the contrary to the viewing of a film with its closed fictional dramatic space.Many know the experience that a perfectly done piece of literary theatre may be like watching three-dimensional—and mostly a bit clumsy-cinema.

Fourth remark:postdramatic theatre is not a fashion

There are still voices today but they have become rare which hope that the postdramatic ghost will simply disappear again and theatre will come back to what and how it used to be in the 19th century.I do not believe that this hope can ever be fulfilled.Postdramatic theatre has become in a certain way mainstream or at least a securely established practice,even a label.Many postdramatic practices,hotly disputed in the 1980s,became more common in the 1990s and are now simply a part of mainstream.In festivals like Theatertreffen of 2017 or “Theater der Welt” it was even difficult to spot examples of dramatic theatre.The productions of Heiner Goebbels are taken by many to be representative of the state of affairs in contemporary theatre language and his work is quite obviously postdramatic with its “cross-over”between music,philosophy,painting and performance,bridging theatre and installation.Some of the important early postdramatic protagonists like Jan Fabre and Jan Lauwers continue to be controversial but have also become part of the “establishment” by now.（I would never have guessed,when I published“Postdramatic Theatre” in 1999,that Jan Lauwers would one day be presenting at Salzburger Festspiele,or that Jan Fabre would be chosen as curator in Avignon.） Robert Wilson’s aesthetics have been commercialized for a long time and his work is enjoyed now by a wide audience.In Italy an artist like Barberio Corsetti became director of the theatre Biennale in Venice,Luca Ronconi followed—Giorgio Strehler as director of Picccolo Teatro,while Mario Martone took over the Teatro di Roma.Radical works by“Societas Raffaello Sanzio” as well as the long time performances,installations and street actions of Forced Entertainment are considered by many critics now as highlights of the contemporary theatre scene.The description in the book 20 years ago seems to the point and applicable to what happens in theatre of today.

So there is no reason to believe that postdramatic theatre is just a phenomenon of a passing fashion.The notion points instead to a thorough reshaping of the traditional way of doing theatre which puts into question a poetics of theatre which was in vigour in Europe for centuries,the poetics of drama.（That the discussion about postdramatic theater boils hot in China now is the result of a belated academic reception;artists had put to good use the book since the first printing of the translation by Yinan Li in 2010,the 2nd printing was published in 2016.⑥）

Fifth remark:about the difference between success and impact

While it is obvious that a number of performances in,for example,the Wuzhen festival are more postdramatic than dramatic in style—which is only natural for a festival with an international ambition—there are some general polemics going on against invitation of such theatre.I do not intend to enter here into inner-Chinese quarrels about invitation politics.But let me say that a polemic looks a bit provincial which rejects the new theatre in the name of some dubious notion of literary quality.And this polemic certainly does not make its case stronger by advocating as alternative of all things the works of some American or English playwrights who certainly write good texts,well made plays,but,staying within the framework of traditional drama,certainly are successful,but remain completely out of touch with the research which takes place in other writing today.（I consider all art to be research in the precise sense of research in the possibilities to give expression to human experience.Consequently,the criterion of judgement in art cannot be primarily the “success”,let alone the box office result.The criterion must be the “impact”,meaning the contribution to the artistic evolution.A writer or director or actor who does not teach something new to writers,directors or actors does not teach anybody.

Seventh remark:on the often high literary quality of postdramatic writing

I said already that it is a misunderstanding to see postdramatic theatre as the driving force in the supersession of the literary dimension.Seeking out new ways for theatre does not exclude to be at the peak of literary achievement.Thinking of important contemporary authors who have made an impact on writing for the stage in the last decades,these names—to confine myself to the German speaking scene-are certainly among the first ranks:Heiner Müller,Elfriede Jelinek,Peter Handke,René Pollesch.They all write in postdramatic ways,all did groundbreaking work with regard to writing for the stage.The work of Pollesch has become more and more political over the years thematising in sophisticated ways the problems of the virtual dimensions of labour and the disastrous consequences of the omnipresence of business communication for individual identity.He has found a form to deal with basic concepts of the capitalist style of life.Elfriede Jelinek won the Nobel Prize,Heiner Müller was nominated for it,Heiner Goebbels received many prizes,Peter Handke among other awards the Ibsen prize and so forth.Impossible to deny the high literary standard of much of postdramatic writing.

Eighth Remark:on Elfriede Jelinek

It would lead too far here to discuss the manifold ways in which postdramatic writing is bringing to life great classic texts in new versions.Let us take a look at one example only.I choose Elfriede Jelinek,because she is one of the most renowned authors of our time.Despite the great difficulty that her texts present to translation she is one of the most often staged authors in contemporary international performance.Earlier she created variants of classical texts,which she called “parasite-dramas”,for example a follow-up to Ibsen’s Nora.And recently she wrote a variant of the “Suppliants” by Aeschylus⑦.This postdramatic text offers literary and dramatic sophistication in a complex and ironic play on the ancient tragedy.It begins already with the title,since “Die Schutzbefohlenen” — “The wards” -instead of“Die Schutzflehenden” brings at once into play the audience members:it is us,the audience,in Austria or in Europe,to whom the refugees are “entrusted” for protection.This is a not unusual procedure of postdramatic performance:the classic text is so to speak “redeemed” from its splendid isolation and brought again in direct confrontation with the today.Let me quote a few words from the beginning of the play of Jelinek:

“We live.We live.That’s the main thing.We live.And much more it isn’t than to live,after leaving the holy fatherland.Nobody looks down on our trek.But looking down on us,they do anyway.Escaped,not sentenced by a court of the people.But sentenced we are.”

The subject of the text is a chorus of refugees of today who are addressing us,begging for their life.However,this “we”uses in the text images,metaphors and words that have more to do with German history than with the flood of images of refugees of our time.Spectators know the photos of the endless treks of refugees from the East in the snow;the expression “holy fatherland” （“Heilige Heimat”） was customary for Silesia,from where after the war in 1945 hundreds of thousands had to flee,the name “Volksgerichtshof” points to the Nazi-Regime in Germany.By this fusion of present and past the text makes it impossible for the spectators to know who exactly is speaking.The chorus-we will change constantly between different identities.Like other pieces of Elfriede Jelinek,this is a postdramatic theater of discourse,that constantly throws the terror of what it says into a merciless stream of groaners.The dramatic principle of identifiable dramatis personae is broken from the start.Some may dislike the bewilderment caused by this technique.The argument can be made,however,that only such a poetics which prevents the easy identification is adequate for writing about the refuge“crisis”without luring the spectator in a comfortable moralistic attitude toward this catastrophe of millions which Jelinek sees as a catastrophe of European humanism in the last centuries.

Ninth remark:theater under“western”influence?

One criticism which caught my attention was that artists and curators who give space to postdramatic theater are accused of following a wrong path in terms of cultural politics.They should,I understand,resist the “western” influence!Which,as the critic believes,is present in the experimental theater forms.

But isn’t this position turning the reality topsy-turvy?

What was blooming in the last centuries worldwide under the western influence—to avoid the ugly term western cultural imperialism — wasn’t that exactly the dramatic set-up of European theater!?It was exactly this dramatic mode of theatre which was exported to-or imposed on-the whole world from the Americas to Australia,India and Asia.If somebody were to be criticized for giving too much credit to“western”influence I would argue to the contrary:that to cling stubbornly to the dramatic model is a position which is in danger of advocating the continuing subordination of other cultures to the “western”culture.And this in a moment where the strength of European culture is clearly visible not in the gesture of its self-propaganda,but in the capacity of self-critique,even to the point of self-denial.

Side-remark on our discussion

In this field I see an important task of institutions like the Shanghai Theater Academy:To encourage the idea that the critique should,much more than it is the case till now,think from the perspective of production,not from the standpoint of reception.This will have the productive effect of encouraging attempts to cope with the aesthetic phenomena of our time—instead of just complaining about artistic failures.Of course,we as recipients of art can enjoy side by side classic texts and nowadays performances.But to suggest to a painter to paint like Raffael or to a writer to write like Homer makes clear at once the nonsensical attitude that is behind such demands.

Still,there is a truth in the complaint that people care less to read any longer,let alone to bother to deal with textual material of high complexity.In this respect,dear colleagues,who are worried about the fate of the literary aspect of culture,worried about a certain anemia and amnesia of the literary dimension—I can only greet you with a warm welcome—I am,too,so welcome to the club!You may not be aware of the fact that the author of“Postdramatic Theatre” has spent a large part of his academic life studying the texts of Heiner Müller and Bertolt Brecht;that he wrote in 1991 （when he for the first time used the terms postdramatic and predramatic）a book which analyzes ancient tragedies;that he is an admirer of the nearly pure dramatic theatre of Jean Racine （which was object of his “habilitation”）.And that a next book which I hope to see translated in Chinese is“Tragedy and Dramatic （ !） Theatre”.

It is wrong to hold theatre responsible for a general cultural evolvement;as it is wrong to deny the creativity of theatre practice to widen the notion of theatre.Our discussion should be helpful for all artists who have the courage today to follow their path even in the face of rejection.（To them I would like to send this message:don’t forget that the first impressionist painters were called madmen by critics;or that the first audience of Beethoven’s 5th symphony just laughed at the composer,when they heard the four notes which everybody knows today-were shocked as they were about what they deemed to be the unusually primitive and childish simplicity of the motif.）

Even when we see things in very different ways,we should never forget that our discussion takes place on a common ground.The common ground is the common interest in the blooming in survival of a rich cultural activity.In this respect we should see our discussion,even conflicts,as a dispute between friends who have the common task of defending the conspicuously shrinking domain of genuine aesthetic experience—be it literary,musical,visual or whatever.

Notes:

①Hans-Thies Lehmann,Postdramatic Theatre,Bejing University Press,2.Auflage,2016,S.21ff.

② Schweig!Was,meinst du, ändert sich leichter Ein Stein oder deine Ansichtdarüber? “ In:Bertolt Brecht,Gesammelte Werke,Frankfurt am Main 1967,vol.8,page290.

③David Wiles,A Short History of Western Performance Space,Cambridge University Press,2003.

④Michael Fried,Art and Objecthood,in:Fried,Art and Objecthood:Essays and Reviews,Chicago University Press 1996.

⑤ Nicholas Bourriaud,Relational Esthetics,Paris:Presses du réel,2002.

⑥See note 1.

⑦ Die Schutzbefohlenen,in:Theater heute,vol.55（2014),7,S.3-19.