KRANKHEIT ODER MODERNE FRAUEN

Arthur-Schnitzler-Platz 1

1070 Wien

 

Following the successful productions of humanistää! based on Ernst Jandl and MALINA based on Ingeborg Bachmann, director Claudia Bauer once again devotes herself to great Austrian literature this season – and, 35 years after the equally successful and scandalous Austrian premiere at the Volkstheater, takes a fresh look at Elfriede Jelinek's ludicrous, bloodthirsty play on clichés, prejudices, and male concepts of femininity. A vampiric delight! Have you tasted blood yet?


"Now, unfortunately, I'm dead!"

Dr. Heidkliff is a real man. He has his life under control. Dentist, gynecologist, sexually mature. Everything's fine with him; he's the norm. Women, on the other hand, well, so-so. Women are chaos, nature, exhaustingly animated and significant, at least since ancient times. But they can give birth to new life! Perhaps even new male life, the junior boss or the heir to the throne. Amen and cheers.

His fiancée, the diligent nurse Emily, assists him with all deliveries at Dr. Heidkliff's practice. However, she's already gotten a taste for it: Two blood-dripping wooden stakes protrude from her chest, her canine teeth are oddly sharp – but "that, Emily, doesn't bother me at all, as long as you don't neglect the house."

That changes when the next pair of patients comes through the door. Benno Hundekoffer is a tax consultant, and his wife Carmilla is pregnant for the sixth time. The birth seems to be going well, and the new baby is eagerly greeted by Benno ("Oops! There's someone sitting in the lookout! This place is Vienna, that's Austria!"). But then Carmilla dies in childbirth, and Benno is briefly a little sad about it. Emily, however – in a flirtatious mood and full of hunger thanks to all that birth blood – saves Carmilla with a courageous bite to her neck. This leads to a vampiric love affair – with two coffins as their marital bed. Blood transfusions from the doctor's office serve as provisions, and if necessary, the children are at risk. Heidkliff and Hundekoffer, however, are not at all enthusiastic about their wives' unexpected subjectivization – and call for the ultimate hunt: "Wastes of seed! I want to be war!" But the undead can no longer be co-opted...

A linguistic excess, an anatomy of discourse, a meat grinder of convention: Elfriede Jelinek's ILLNESS OR MODERN WOMEN, first published in 1984, is a ludicrous cosmos that transcends theatrical and moral boundaries, against which neither garlic nor crucifix stands a chance. The 1990 performance of the play at the Volkstheater brought Jelinek to a major stage in Austria for the first time and was both a success and a scandal; the then director, Emmy Werner, was even physically attacked for it. Now – a generation later – Claudia Bauer takes a fresh look at this text. After the successful productions of humanistää! After Jandl and MALINA after Bachmann, this is her third exploration of sensational Austrian literature.

Stroboscope effects are used in this production.

(Source: volkstheater.at)