 And they say, I love you. I love you. I love you. Yeah. I just love you. And I like you. But it makes me really sad. I'm sorry. I just want to say a little bit about you. And I'm sure you have a great time with us. But I'm glad. I'm glad about that. I'm sure. But I'm glad. And I'm sure you can. But I'm glad about that. I'm glad about that. Okay. It's academic and it's theater and it's the place where they both meet. We have the audience and the participants for each other. For example, some women sharing what they think you're sharing, how you do that. There's no way you can ignore that form anymore. Working on it. You can come and see me talk about it. It starts out a little thing, you like the thing, you have to be completely open. Theater for everybody. Yes, everybody. That's it. What should we do? Indeed. My understanding of life, relationships, death, I've already changed. Survival of theater as an art form depends on that. Thank you, everybody, for coming here to the Segal Theater Center at the Graduate Center CUNY. My name is Frank Henschker and I'm the director of the theater center. Many of you might have heard already my speech. I'm going to try to do it a little bit faster, but still it's important for everybody who is here the first time. It's part of the great Penn World Voices Festival. Penn is a great organization, a writer's organization. It not only gives out one of the most significant awards for writing, but also is fighting for the freedom to write and has fantastic writers in prison program for working on writing on it, but also writers who are persecuted out of prison. It's a great privilege for us to be associated with Penn now for over 10 years. At the moment over 80 artists, writers are in town in New York City as part of the most significant festival perhaps in the Americas when it comes to literature and it was created by Salman Rushdie and Paul Oster during the first Bush administration where they felt there was a tunnel vision. Not enough books from around the world were being published or read in the U.S. 95% of all books come from the American market or the British one and the rest of the 5% half of it is French or German. So we have like two books, two and a half or three out of 100. And it would be unthinkable music or world music to not know what is going on on the performing arts or in the visual arts not to be in contact in global contacts and I think Penn is making a fantastic contribution. And our little contribution is also this festival and I contacted them said we also need writers for this theater in this festival and of course they said of course. And we had as you all maybe saw fantastic contributions from Romania, from Burkina Faso which we had and France and many others. And tonight we have a Nobel Prize winning writer, Elfride Jelinek, a ferocious writer, a brilliant writer who not only is known for her novels but also for her theatrical texts. They are condensed dark matters of writing. They are relentless 40, 50 pages full, no characters given and every director here can choose where, who says what and can collage it and put it together. So she presents a fantastic challenge to directors and to theater audiences. She's very well known, very famous in European stages. She had here, Jackie was a production and good one at the Women's Theater. We have done three or four readings and she really wanted to have this play as the American premiere before it went to the Charles Blossom book. So we had a reading already of this play. It's the first engagement of a major writer in the world with Trump, who is our president and she cannot travel anymore. She is in her apartment and she says she sometimes feels in a way closer perhaps to him. She is in her apartment. She watches the news. She is so upset. She is, you know, with her history of fascism in Europe but also also in Germany and the early science she detects and always has written against in a place like Wackenitz and others. And there's someone like Trump in the White House in his bathrobe. She also watches TV all the time but they are, you know, too heavyweights but in very opposed corners in the boxing ring. And of course we are with her. She is a brilliant writer and I wish she could be here. She does not travel famously. She didn't go to accept the Nobel Prize. And so we are here. The translator Gita Honecker, a fantastic translator, couldn't make it because she is teaching at her university and it's not here. Stefan the director says hello from Canada. So, but we are happy to have a rework of the great, great work, The Burger King and it's an idea of Miss Piggy who is a blind seer and who reimagines a king and dictator of others. Thank you. Okay. Who do I actually want to talk about? I'll have to confer with myself about that. First off, silence would suggest itself. I would prefer that. There's no work. Blindness is also quite practical. Let me be. I see. That's what you're doing already. Let me be for I am ill and I understand nothing. I don't understand what I ordered here. Is it a birdhouse or a new garage? I'll use a car for it. I want to let go over with Ivy. This is what I ordered. If it is what I've got. If it is the house for the birds, there will be no work for me either. I don't want to talk about my mother. Not ever. I couldn't care less if everything's in order with me and I won't elaborate on it either. What debts have I inadvertently run into? Well, in that regard, the king scores much higher than I. At this time he's busy. He has to carve millions of scores into his pistol that is into the barrel. And did he have some barrel out of this world? No, I don't mention my mother. The father's murderous. But I helped her a little. Maybe it was even more than a little. Make sure you stupid cow that you don't bring shame upon him. Watch out that he won't drive you out of this country. The king doesn't look to me as if he wanted to do anything at all. He borrowed money knowing that he can pay. No. Play. His debts to a T. He got far with debts. Yes, even with the planes that were old which he flew. Of course, he was quite the son of a gun. He made a kill. Come on, kids. I'm no Medea. No, I'm not a lecturer either. I would not kill children. From the man's mouth he will hear that he does not want to kill, he will build many buildings, still more buildings. Now he's calling Scotland because he wants to buy another site there. What does this god talk about? What does he tell you? Now that you can finally see him, he tells you a brilliant future. Which you already knew you don't need a god for that. A future which no longer is one. That is the present. These coins are being issued now. The self-assured folks get the same thing on both sides. This coin is valid only for the bringer, but he can't buy anything with it. He's been bought himself and even paid for it himself. A rare feat. Now the king will said what has often been said. Old ages massacre. Can't even look at you. Awful. Well, then I'll just hide behind my worldviews. Which I often show it off with. A world for show. As it turns out now it's becoming the definite of soul worldview we've got. After all, we don't have another world to view. And now will you finally show yourself. You're quite a looker. Why are you hiding? Oh lord. Now you finally get it. Why you've been hiding from us for so long. It is because of the hairdo. And better to your mouth would stay shut. The view is looking for someone who needs one. Most folks already have one. They paid plenty for it. Now he's finally worth something. What kind of forces are there beginning to be effective? You don't say. Someone is hanging from a tree? They can be collective violence. No. No and their entire packs are crossing the borders. Masses of people. Weapons to the masses. But quite a few people are still needed to balance this out. There are more weapons than people. Or maybe not. I don't know. What do forces prevail? They're already consolidated and get cracking. Let's roll. Violent anonymity. Is that what affects this? Sure looks like it. But such anonymity vanishes completely behind the myths and the lies that bubble out of the TV. The man speaks. He's his own religion. Now you can throw away the one you've got. God is here. He takes shape who is prepared any time for the violence of his neighbors. And will therefore return the neighbors to the neighbors. Thank you. Anything the neighbor does just proves to us that the neighbor has aggressive tendencies. We deport him. Life goes on. Folks go away. Life is inexplicable. It is inexplicable to me how life keeps moving. Why won't keep still and must rather constantly catch a view of something? Even from a bus. Deny people force and they'll turn against you to get it back. Force is their favorite hobby and it is also a nice profession. They cast their vote, but don't know who they voted for vote, even though they did it themselves. Life's inexplicability explains why we can't view things without getting them explained to us. Life's inexplicability explains why we can't view things without getting them explained to us. How come? Earlier on the net, things looked quite good. Even the preview of a view. It's even the one we had hoped for. The king is exactly the same. And from that view, from its high horse, we wouldn't gain something nobody wants. The king is in charge of it and he's not for sharing it. He just decided this once and for all and once he validated to the end, all other regulations expired. Have expired. For violence is something external in case you have observed it with children. The way they share, shovel and stand, bucket voluntarily and yet already the next moment, the bucket including its content, fly in the plate made space. Violence is not superficial, even though we would like to think it is. It fuses. It fuses. It is long fused. It goes in very deeply and then down. We're from very dark forces emerge and fuse your cancer with your losses of people and stocks and earthquake in Italy or whatever. It meets your own violence which also is ready to break out and mow down everything anytime. Even though the grass you don't want to have, you don't want your neighbor to have either this innocent immaculate grass which does nothing but grow. Yes, the dandalion in it unfortunately does too, has nothing done to you except being there and having also brought you the dandalion and you didn't like that. In case you're looking for your world view, we have it. If you can get it or a similar one, whatever we have right now, anytime. But it is painful to look at the world, horrible. Take our glasses from our brand optician, not from the other one who also carries brands. But they have expired. They have lost their appeal, but that's all there is for poor folks. If they also want to see something, they don't understand. The Pathbreaker shows himself, but he doesn't know what he broke. When God came to pass that he brokered this path, he doesn't get it. He was no front-runner. He just likes breaking things. But now he's got them and doesn't know what to do with them. The people, that's us. Pardon me. We are of course a different people. We are the Falk, the Reich, and the new Fuhrer that he's new already shows that he's not dangerous. The dangerous ones had their turn already. He's the Vice Regent. He's got the ball for that. As for us, we are a small Falk, but we are also somebody, and we were even more. So many had to take their clue from us in order to take us to court. But that's over. Nothing to be done about that. Wind and fog are his allies. Wind and fog are his allies. One can't see anything. We're blown away by the new wind, like his speech. Well, maybe everything gets blown off before he can blow it all up. And he won't be seen anymore. But there are other possible reasons for not seeing him. Because folks were looking for him in the wrong place. The breaker is he. He can break. He can break in everybody. Even the country's top intelligence. His personal tie-breaking service. No more contests there. He can test everything. And now it's the right time to contest everything. Yes, even the university for the sale of buildings, which, however, always only cheated and sold people, they'll be sell now. But you better believe him. He will pay you back for this, too. Did you vote already? Did you vote already? What for do you need a path breaker when all you are is broke and dying to get back? Where the wooden fence with the lopsided for sale sign blocks serve you? You wouldn't really want to buy back your own house. No more house. No more shelter. No truth. No property. Tell me, are you testing me now? I can explain why we all belong to the banks, which had to be saved before. Because if they had not been saved, we would have been safe. Now we exercise power. It's the essence of power that demands surrender. Outer surrender, yes. And even exercise, or we could not exercise it. We still look at power as something external while it is inside us. It is already inside us. We surrender to it, and then it wasn't even our lover. We'd have never wanted a horrible type like that. Did you see his face? His hair? It's not what we wanted. We never wanted that. We brought him. And now he's inside us. We sacrificed for him. We sacrificed ourselves to him. But this sacrifice is not a piece of him. He wants to continue to live in his sky fucking scraper where there is so much gold. I don't think it's real because there is so much of it. And from there, he will. He will call us to order. We think he's already sharp enough. And the unconsciousness of his supporters' calculations, those who elected him, comes clearly to light on this freshly printed receipt streaming out of the cash register. And it is wrong! This receipt! Too little has been noted and netted because one fan in tow is not enough. Towing a trailer can be done by any car that's strong enough to carry a tennis ball on the tow bar. I can see the purpose of it. I still can see it. But its function is to protect the part that's sticking out under the bumper to protect the other cars from itself. We often think we protect ourselves while we actually protect others. Embarrassing. Often can't do. Carry the tennis ball, towing the trailer. I already said it. When the driver is too weak for it, then the trailer tows the towing vehicle. Doesn't it? And not the other way around. One can lose one fan in tow. One just has to give a voice to the fan base. This has been done here with. I don't have more to say about that. And this impotence. I'm sorry. A good thought, a bite, not mine. How come the costume, sorry, the custom, has not been delivered by now? Again, we paid for it three weeks ago by credit card. Though our credit has long been exhausted and we could not buy anything for it and had to give ourselves the liver. Drone by drone to drone, victory of convenience. The past can no longer be delivered. This is it. It didn't run out. It's here already. Though different than it's ever been. And no sacrifice will reconcile us again. And the proposition. No, the presentation. That everyone can be man and woman at once. If he just wants it just as he wants it. Nothing is fixed. Only eternity threatens us all the same. This presentation will be given at the lecture hall today. Unfortunately, we don't hear it. Even though all the visuals are in place. The lecture will be canceled and other than that, no one is saying anything. The thinker wanted to lead the leader but lost him halfway because he overlooked a signal all other people said heard except him. Lost him in a place in which he had no place. Poor thinker. I can see it already. This man, this man possesses the truth which is a mystery. Which is no mystery. We have been told long ago and unfortunately passed it on wrong. In any case, not as we've heard and not understood it either. Chinese whispers are even less understandable than Greek. Every child knows that. Not mine. I don't have to use force against them like Medea. But here I proceed myself once again. I shouldn't do that. And children were not delivered to me. Amazon claims they got lost in transit. Fine with me. Well, one thing I do know, this man has not killed any relatives. We know this for sure. All of them are still around. And standing in front of the cameras, lined up like dogs in dog training would never do. They first have to be yelled at. Best service anywhere. Only the younger and more beautiful are getting married. They're instantly recognizable anywhere. We don't need an internist or a seer for that. And we don't pay him either for telling us what he found out, what all of us have known all along and can watch anytime on Face the Nation. Now, Facebook. The king bought up all the blindness because he saw its advantages. One can believe a blind man anything he says. He isn't capable of lying because he never gets to know the truth. Does all this come from his brain or is it someone else's invention? He can't remember his birth which was followed by terrible events. Our life is based on this. Not remembering. The protection of the environment will also disappear. The unborn's protection will come. The wall along the gigantic border. No, both are gigantic. Wall and the border. Made of Heidelberg cement. The world's best. Much better than gas. Which is good for heating at best. The wall will rise. Water and gravel added. Yes, lime too. How else could we cover so many corpses? And there we have it. The wall. Bigger than we could ever imagine. It will be born so that the others can no longer be born. At least here with us. They won't get across the border in time to give birth to their children in the hospital's elevator. They don't have enough cash for a hotel. Well, at least they will have made it to the clinic. We are on the floor. We are an American. We are one American. But no more. Okay. Okay, move it to the positive. The children. The children, however, might be included in the insurance. The king assures you on a whim and his mighty wham and why. Because I say so. Because I am not I. I don't have a son. No son will die at the hand of the king. The king will not be the son who dies himself. I don't know. You have the choice of three paths. So pick one. Then give birth in peace and quiet. No in this quiet. Give birth to the savior. Then tie his legs together and throw him. Watch. That's how he's done. You take the legs like a purse at a handle. Then take him up a nearly impassable mountain. Oh my God. What? What's so difficult about that? The father's child. In this case a daughter. You reach into her and right away she barks at you. She yells at you. She doesn't put up with anything. So let her be. I finally stop this nonsense with words. That gal would never kill the father. Doesn't have what it takes. Fathers have every reason to suspect the worst of their sons. But none of those not from the daughter either. The worst is not expected from them. Others will have to do that. The king is naked. Not blind. What does he do to not having opponents? A king needs opponents. He grows on them. At first everybody seemed to be his opponent. That was our fault. Our delusion to think we were all of us. Wherever they all are there always are still more of them all. And we are not all of us. And it is not all over with us. Everyone of us rejects him. Everyone around us. That is those I know. Things he's able to overpower the power that's coming now and won't be coming or it's coming straight away from him. Well where else? That's good. We have to go back to the beginning of the making. We've needed one for a long time otherwise as of this moment you would have slept another 50 years or however many they were. Revolution too soon to tell. We are still hearing the king's promises and won't let him keep them. He grabs for what he just heard woman. We'll get that woman into jail our opponent. And if it's the last thing we're going to do it's not her, but it will be the last she will see of us. A closed door with guards in front of it so she won't get out. But then again, no one asks for her either. The king cannot become good without losing his malicious sides. Which one of them will he turn to us now? To the Syrians? Who's that now? I said Syria, not Sereza. That man simply can't keep them apart. We now turn to the troublemakers and we first don't let in and then not out again like the Russian. We don't want him and still he's here. Where? Well, that one we do want. Other Russians maybe not. So then do we really want him? Do we want all of them? The blind is talking to the blind. The net has been set up for orientation so that no one falls over the cliff. If one turns off half of it a catastrophe can be the result should people have still been in it. For example a few hundred Polish construction workers without helmets. With helmets, it would have been too expensive. They already had sledgehammers so they could not reject the suggest to do without helmets. It would be cheaper that way. Nonsense the other way around. But everything has been turned upside down already and nothing came out. So a hole has been created. Something is missing but it certainly will be filled soon. He eliminated it immediately so he wouldn't be eliminated. But beyond that it's spreading. The disorder is spreading since much slips through a net that must be swept under it. Should I build yet another house and then no more? Cemetery is less work. It only needs work when someone needs to get in. Let's get the building down first. The basement levels will be cooked in the books. Oh my god now a landslide moved half my golf course into the Pacific. Hold it, no no no no it was only the 18th hole. That's supposed to be half a billion? Okay fine with me. That's what we'll tell the amazed public. We won't tell the IRS. They'd have to add on the half to say to make this course as expensive as I say. I must have my ID ready and show it even though everyone knows me. So that I won't get expelled from this country. Which I have in mind but not for me. So this is what's coming next. People with their poor religious thinking and even poor knowledge will simply be thrown out. I tried to hold on to the truth if nothing else works but now can you hold on to something that keeps swaying and I supposed to look for it? I certainly have better things to do. First the king was mean to us. He doesn't write, he twitters. The thinker imputes that he's been the creator of violence in his first life which he still spanned among the people. Now he has been elevated. No, he levitated himself in his gilded elevator all the way into he's still here. That was my delusion. But as soon as he will be removed also by force we have not yet reached that point to explore his conduct of life. We only see what he's showing us. Maybe we'll never get rid of him. Thing that's not what he has in mind will happen. A king first appears to us as a sort of savior but then we will let him free again so he can proceed and how he proceeds better than right now. Oh yes our king well I'll be curious how the net and all that twitter and the book of faces will among them suddenly, sadly none of me will take to it very well because the book takes everything and everyone and each one in turn takes pictures of others click, click, click that's just the grue and still keeps growing no one has to look at the king anymore the pictures are enough for where we are he prefers living elsewhere and his tweeting is enough his cock gets through someplace else he certainly has enough houses oh well I have no monopoly on the truth, I just game it for the real since he only produced losses he thinks it's better than being king than beggar I owe the banks so much these days, no repo man could dig up that much gold in my towers no German repotrooper it's the Deutsche Bank after all where we cook them up, HALT German alt-right, THE DOG these gigantic deaths but once I'm liquid again I'll buy up the truth or lease it depending what's a better deal I'll buy it on credit like everything else and I'll also make promises because credit is for the pros and cons well, in any event, a promise of more why should I not take on more debts and you bet I'll be able to take care of them and high expenses are also necessary until one earns zero that's hard work, expenses they have to be worked up it takes quite an appetite expenses are getting bigger and bigger sorry, evasions the king the king has the money that's good it makes him independent, a big advantage well this is why we elected him and god as well has chosen him for it he is choice he gets people to take their life if they still have it and haven't yet had it into their own hands but it is an alien life it is a monstrous man-child and now you are fucked the tax return has their signature but it isn't us it wasn't us the man-child you're now holding in your hands wasn't it either god, it is ugly, it can possibly be ours he owes the Deutsche Bank zig heil one has to be big and be able to think big debtors can even be locked up but first, we help the people that's most important their wallets are teeming with plastic and the king didn't come away after he handed either he got away with becoming king but no one expected he would does it really matter what for he uses the money he borrowed? it sure does but nothing can be done about it the key goes to the bank often even by mail the interests are higher than the worth of the whole house not mine it has its own garden its own paddling pool and its own independent heating system our life is worth something sure thing, but only to us because we constantly feel the heat there are more and more of us the poorer the more and others are to follow actually there really should be less people yet there are more and more while they have less and less I also request tax relief why does no one grant it to me? the king also has nothing and look what he made of it palaces well now they certainly can be counted permit me to make money from nothing then I'll personally dissolve what is still bonded and bind what is still separate the desert, precisely they can't even separate one grain of sand from the other and you can make losses in unlimited amounts nobody will notice it will cost you anything either now the usurper shows his face really? that's him? true it is not I mean it is not his true face nothing is true what he shows it has only been borrowed but it will be never returned you see it already, I don't yet it is the same as in his usurper's license, which gets him anywhere yes, gladly also into women into every house by way of senator or display he simply gets in everywhere and then he tells whom he wants to hurt today and whom tomorrow and day after tomorrow he says at this time that can change quickly, there's something else I want to hurt neither you or you he points into the ear but nobody's there what? becoming my father's murderer? never he's been dead for me for a long time and if I wanted to kill someone else it's nobody's business the king won't give a damn killing a father, killing him I'd never do that besides he's already dead anyway how often do I have to repeat that I'd never do anything that hasn't been done already by many and tried out by real estate professionals if anything I'd do it better oh god the sacrifices crisis the cult isn't what it used to be either each see or see something else that's something to think about but nobody's got to think just because he cannot see he has other organs he can contemplate elsewhere but these here are his buildings of course the king's got enough of them that is plenty of buildings he just bought another one buildings are his life, his sustainment his entertainment if there are casinos inside when the pavement is past due it doesn't mean it won't arrive or stay away it'll just come late a deed will be recorded when he pays our Mr. King nothing gets recorded okay king, you're 10 million that's 2 million more than the purchase price I call that more than generous the devil's contribution are 2800 in cash with all that one fall the king has gotten from the bank he keeps winding up the upkeep which adds up to more than the value of all that junk so what do humans have no shame he will give up everything and only want to be king he won't give up anything and still become king he's just saying it and whatever he says is a lie he even lies about his own name so when he lies under a false name which is only possible or advisable on phone or vis-a-vis blind seers he'll still rule without eyes only with his voice and get many many more votes to boot he sees everything through his eyes though he's eyeless yes he's also talking he competes for our votes he needs our voices because his is not his own he must be elected otherwise he sees no future otherwise he does not see the future humankind what nothing it is your life nothing always for me it is always the same one and the same no future whatsoever will take the place I think nothing constitutes his lifetime achievement award he can frame that or stick it to others the king now the country finally awakens it is no longer the land of the whites it is split as never before where is this crack bray tell we don't want to fall into it we want to be either here or there to the left or the right of the chasm and look into it and be terrified there it is black and blacker this land is all belongs to the whites there's so many I can't oversee it let's hope enough concrete gets delivered before we are broke says the king so the house is finished before we are all insolvent insolvent now like herds of cattle are the men who want to finally get to be something too after their acts of violence they vanished unnoticed like again they're coming from places many places whose cities should whenever possible not be recognizable at all do we send them off or do we leave them here so those men were in foreign countries like us not like me the military are always in foreign countries there isn't much to do there here the men are always in foreign countries and to behave foreign countries where I haven't been very often those men know them it was their mission to commit dark things dreadful stuff and afterwards communicate them the men hit hard holding back for now we measure the stars in our shoulders by your stars we shall know you we won't need any generals not that but I wouldn't let them into my home citizens will no longer build houses they now have generals to build them up men who do not want to be addressed in any event not by some citizens whom they don't know generals are important they kill but they do not defile the beset of dead a gang of young white men say they're just talking about what about men whatever now they're the first ones talking anyway they always are the first one to take the floor listen say those who never listen today they're not talking about what everybody else is talking about on purpose because they think this is the value of self-will that cuts itself off from reason and when self-will is talking then only about its ownness don't you find this strange how do you do it doesn't the white man answers he does not want any more regulation of speech he makes the rules now which are as stated not regulations but maybe even law he's a forgotten working class he can see that the elites are at a loss too this is our now he will control the land and sell the voiceless a voice lesson the ticket to a lottery vote to each his own lot no he will find the ditched ones and hitch them to the masses again and he will give a voice to the masses if the ditched get unhitched they must be given a voice okay here you have your voice half a kilo vote will this be all it'll be all they speak with one vote should we count this one vote one more time no I'll count it for you it makes no difference to me it is one piece of vote that's it and it won't get more either everyone got only one they speak with one voice take the power and shove it up your ass you say this funnier but I can't do it now the only one who can do it is the one enforcing his power he's above it what should we do with power we are pushing those who are foreigners for us now but haven't always been at least that's what they thought back into foreign lands forever is this supposed to be an action no it can be but something should be happening no matter what and no matter how and so with me, as usual it's always talk a children choir enters millions of people voted who weren't supposed to an important but difficult task no idea which one let's sing the king must bring all the voters together again big task big task an important message to that one too he can be this unifying power we strongly believe in sure, there are protests but we, the kids, we jubilate yuppie doo, riots ba dum ba dum yeah those two from the other side, protests and riots but the king will unify the country well this is why I voted for our king I hate correctness correctness is what I hate most and we are the most he's the savior of the world so when he makes mistakes we'll criticize him yuppie doo, twitter, twitter we'll do all the time everyone says what he says everyone assaults the one he's always assaulted everyone assaults everyone except if he knows him and even then but we trust him and his daughter is also a strong advocate for him, it's her vocation she vowed to it and keeps wowing us with her vow I'm for it yeah, she defended the king therefore it cannot be true the daughter defended him and this is why I believe her that he was doing something he did not promise us we will protest that's the beauty of democracy we must have it somewhere twitter the tweet, twitter the tweet and another tweet, and yet another tweet totally thrilled that he's our king now it's a blast the opportunity is what is so fantastic about our system the other one we don't like we don't like her the we miss calls and 15 texts and the smart phone and all of them say the same thing that they're also thrilled and happy love our country will get better will get better will get better hopefully we can all work together and make the country again into what it was when he didn't even know it hearing this gave me even more hope cheerio! he takes away the sins of the world in one flow the downpour darkly bleeds away it comes out of his bleeding eyes which at least could see us once then they gave up they did not want us to see anymore we all exit singing now and if with new courage our hearts are filled we can enter again one moment, are you expecting me to flee from this country? since so many must flee this path was not meant for me I thought I would be walking all by myself why then are so many people right here of all places where I am right here what are they telling me how I should fit how I should fit in with them okay what misery is out there still for me to appropriate illegally those folks who elected the king will soon find out about the sacrificial raid albeit not for me just as Abraham he had to learn the lesson about his son what did God tell him so then God would have never requested from Abraham that he should sacrifice his dear son and this is exactly I think I got this now this is exactly how these factories these smelting furnaces or however still is produced nowadays and most of all where so these factories have all been moved they had to be slaughtered and gutted well you won't find any more here look for them elsewhere best on another continent the son should have never been sacrificed but do you know it takes the wood and he puts it on his son Isaac the wood and the son so he would burn better sure some fire under his ass no under the smelting furnace which no longer exist and if it does then in India or China that's too far away he however Abraham took the fire to the knife in his hand and both of them went together through this rotted city which has to become new again freed from rest one sacrifice probably won't be enough to accomplish this but better than nothing thus Isaac spoke to his father Abraham my father Abraham replied here they are my son but it is not enough it's not enough for the son to be there a competent worker who did not count whoever counted anyway not he okay he didn't either why the father who like any father had learned to slaughter it could be very useful to him there always will be wars here I am and the son who can't see a steel mill anywhere nor steel for that matter he spoke I see here he spire in wood but where is the iron to boil down where is the product we are to produce am I to be the product I've already been produced after all I've been brought here but and we agreed on that I was not to be destroyed on the contrary I'm here to work I had my draft call to work I had to wait an eternity for it Abraham replied what's there for him to say my son God God will now get himself some sleep a sheep for the sacrifice and here it is already how pleasant it has already been supplied it will only have to be shorn then we can kill it in peace and quiet and thus they walked quietly together father and son who has the honor to play the sheep in the community theater performance I'm presenting here work for the king is only a gratuity how am I to know you however King Oedipus will still be hearing about him having heard about him more than we wanted to hear I'm afraid you King now I'm asking you since we're on the topic how come your super ego became that huge when this happened for a long time we didn't even notice but now it can no longer be overlooked uh-huh I see that isn't it that is you come yourself you don't let yourself be represented who are we anyway who do we think we are to talk the way we do that's over we're dying of our own flop and now we are despised for what we have recently been praised for becoming almost immortal yes the thinkers yes but also the poets the writers pretty important the writers and this says one who will soon die who no longer can foster any illusions just let me have this country let me leave this country that's it you won't even notice that I'm gone don't take my word for it I'm not afraid Mr. King of anything or anyone you take the word by the hand out of the house you're not the minority speaker you are Mr. Speaker forget all the others you take the word you take the word out like a dog he keeps pulling at you he wants to get going the word wants to get away everything wants to get away but no one it's way or two at any rate away from you even though you control the ratings so we don't have anything to say that's our punishment and our joy nobody listened a whole long time no one and that stupid word is pulling me again it's almost tears my arms out and socket the answer is hypocrite the king is to blame for the 43 citizen's demise just because he has come and now he's here because he is who he is the king is guilty now we know it he committed the egregorous suggestion of letting himself be voted king by us so now he's responsible he's overloaded with guilt he's much indebted to us he's so loaded that no more deaths are left now we would need a real miracle here they come already millions of delicious victims strolling in knife and fork placing their backs I just went to the side they all look okay we're already searching for recipes of sauces are they all coming then are you victims all coming so that the unity of the seriously injured community can be established again must we offer a sacrifice to the king because God doesn't want to have him please come back or do I first have to call an angel please I didn't even have to call he was here the whole time so there the angel of the lord and master is calling somebody first thing the provider because he hasn't yet put up a tower or whatever he wanted to provide us with first of all for a minimum rate so that we too can talk to anyone and listen to no one it wouldn't be worth it anyway who would want to talk to God the distance is too far the angel dialed this number so that the word can spread he looks at the display to check whether he's dialed the right number since no one's picking up the phone Skyping won't work in this case what's there to see anyway please take your place at the sacrificial rock make yourselves comfortable I'm just getting the knife Abraham Abraham do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him for now I know that you fear God seeing you have not withheld your son your only son for my sake please don't be angry with me I'm better not listen to me do you ever do in New York also an actor from Austria who lives here for over 10 years and again quite an exclusive performance thank you so much we're going to have some mics so you can hear us better I think this is working so yeah well maybe a little bit of light to the audience too if possible but again wow that's a strong a strong onslaught of words so carefully crafted and so also beautifully delivered tough to say so how does it all sound to you someone born in Austria knows Yellenek works in the theater lives in New York does it bridge those worlds this piece I think what's so amazing with her works is that I feel the plays are like novels and the novels are like plays in a way it's just I can really see her musical background in what she does I feel it's very lyrical how she writes I feel I was talking to that earlier to my mother who is here to visit which is cool that I feel like she follows her thoughts all the way through like even beyond I feel like a lot of writers there's a thought and then this thought is done and then we move on to the next thought it's like a stream of consciousness she keeps going and she follows it it almost goes past the initial thought and it just brings her to the next thought but it all flows to me it's very musical these words are so forceful they do have power and also represent the powerless they are so very very very strong how is it for you to deliver such lines, that text first of all it's very actually difficult to because English is really not my native language and she's so verbal it's very very difficult to navigate through the labyrinth that she creates particularly because they're not just for show they really do have meaning and you have to literally musically follow them up otherwise it doesn't make any sense so it's very very difficult and it's almost forever a mistake I did I'm going to hide behind the fact that but it would probably take months to actually pile it out and see what's going on with everything but she did do a wonderful interview with Gita Honegger about I think initiated by the play but they talked about those sorts of things and she said one of the things that she said that I thought were fascinating is that she believed that no one can be an actor unless they're musical because the only way for you to read a play is if you can actually read it musically which is the fact that you're really reading the rhythm of the writer so you're really reading music and so I would also be very curious to read it in German and I'm sure there's so much more there and when I first read it and it's actually much different now because we did it a year ago exactly and now it's completely you have a completely different view of the text and of the situation in which we are so I don't know I mean it's been an honor it is almost as if she saw that Miss Piggy figure as a prophecy as a type female Tiresia who sees what's out there but for you and also for the future you do look like a young Elfride Yelena I tried, I put everything up and I had a little bit of hair and about the musicality she is a young age as a music prodigy I don't know if you ever saw the film with Isabel Huper the piano teacher but it's very much also based brutally honestly on her life but I think she also understands very clearly the onslaught that is in a way happening in a political sense to the country, to the people to the minds to our morals or standards I think it is a strong response to it so she is a very political writer maybe tell a bit about what does she mean in Austria in the German or European countries where does she stand in general it's really bad I can tell you that I feel like in Europe everywhere right now and here obviously too it's just like going like this right now, we're going down really bad we just had like publicly outspoken neo-nazi elected and he's in a coalition with the prime minister in Austria in regards to this was before that happened but I do feel like we all saw it coming I feel like she's very known for calling Austria out on its past which is why I love her personally I always go around and I'm like no it's not just Mozart it's you know our entire constitution is based on a lie I'm really like hardcore about the past of my country I'm also very much in the Jewish communities it's important to me and I feel like she also the references she has in this play constantly with the Deutsche Bank and there's like sea kyle and all that she constantly wants to show how bad things are here now and I feel is what I hear and you know really showing up showing us this has happened before like why don't we see why don't we see this is a repetition of things and this is obviously Austrian and German past is it's so clear that she keeps using that as the main example also that's what she knows because she's from there and we all I think everybody's from there carries that with them to one extent or another yeah and I just you know like Thomas Bernhardt was the other main Austrian theater maker who constantly was referring to Austria's past huge critic of Austria and she's the I feel she's the female artist in that yeah I think if her words and her writing would be a sizable graph it's shaking you know the entire apparatus and she really detects an artist are actually anticipating often the future the one that sees what is going to but also anticipating something and they have that gift and I think her visions in a way she's all you know they are they are scary they are intimidate there less leaves one speechless even with all her words but I also do think that in a way she truly believes that art or putting it into a form and standing up as beings but also as artists is a very strong form of resistance and that it should be done can be done and also being asked of audiences I mean it would be very very hard to think this would be on a Broadway on a commercial theater where you go before and after a dinner so it's a different idea what theater is it's more like the old Greek idea where you walk work through social, political complications on stage and you understand something and work something through it instead of entertainment or a commercial where she really is not trying to sell you anything not any feelings and not any any messages you know if at all it's a moment of speechlessness which she fills with words it wouldn't be with us the director he got terribly sick with some very dangerous icing fluovirus we wish him all the best if he is up there so thank you for creating this together with you but did he give you something to read? I'm looking at this page and I'm going to read another page with some singing in between with some singing in between and yodeling so he says I would love to thank and congratulate Frank Henchke I have no idea for a vision and courage and programming for the second time the reading of the world at Siegel center thank you for translating on the world and understanding the world and of course immense gratitude to brilliant actress Masha we live now we live now in a society of dangerous euphemisms the brutalities of the words on the world on the royal road are minor images of alternative facts existing in a so called post-truth world it is the world based on pathological narcissism and brute individualism on the royal road has given us the king that we have created by believing in the construct of duality being the class economical or cultural divides within our year after within one year after we first did the sage reading of this play we as a society have been through the seven stages of grief we have collectively we have been in a civil denial to apathetic acceptance the resistance in the idea of change must prevail the concept of past truth post facebook post god would have emerged as a disruption of the world we know Yalina text offers us an opportunity for the catharsis and chance to see beyond chaos as a destructive force on the royal road is an invitation to re-examine our individual responsibility towards collective it is a powerful reminder on the consequences when the extreme individualism turns into driving political social and economical force on the royal road is taking all the extremes and forces from them to address each other in the absurdest way reminding us that the same time on the importance and beauty of our fragile human existence I have seen this text as an opportunity to send a message of hope and change within the demise of an empire there is a seed for the future growth I want to see the world change and built on the ideas not afraid of art and aesthetics well thank you it was the great german power to hold Yalina's side if there is danger that will save us also is growing at the same same moment so maybe this is part of it but I think after this big statement now and the long monologue which was so beautifully Thank you so much for that let's open up right away and use this what I assure Yalina would like most of we really have as citizens a discussion maybe hear from you if you feel like reacting to what the european from the others think about the americans or not so maybe put some bit more light up here so if you have any comments or questions or something to say since we are recording it it seems so we would like to ask you to use the microphone but is there anything that what you listen to trigger to comment on aha here let's give them the microphone I'll try to make some sense of this I was noticing there were several points that Yalina seems to tie myth and lie together so a lot of the peace having just heard it and I'm not that familiar with her work in general so I'm sort of casting here I'm not sure how much of this is actually in there but there were a lot of mythological elements at the end you have the story of Abraham, Isaac that seems to structure at some level the peace but I felt like there was some ambiguity about her relationship to the myth so is she seeing the myth do you feel as a support or is the myth part of the symptom maybe she's got a complex relationship to those traditions I thought maybe you could cast some light on that so if anybody in the audience has an idea about this please do say is myth part of the problem also you say I think certainly she does use her mythical thinking in many of her plays also Medea was mentioned Oedipus and of course the biblical story of God asking a father to kill his son complex an issue so yes I do think that she says perhaps we all have to rethink foundational mythical thinking of who we are perhaps that idea of the American idea of exceptionalism that it is the greatest country in the world that it is the country that's loved most by God that it is the best country the shining hell which perhaps for a while also it was a great hope and it's really true but maybe now things have also changed and countries in Europe on the age of finding models that also work well so many things are shifting and I think yes I think she is obviously showing Miss Piggy is a strong mythical image also in pop culture with bloody eyes and as a Tyresias a female Tyresias who is confused who she is and what she wants so it's a very strong you know I think a call to rethink my mystical thinking or shows the the insecurities we all have now about what we thought is right or wrong normal but at the same time she seems to go back she seems to actually need that in some way to be able to express the situation so you know it's a there's kind of a I think I think you know using myth or how she's doing it I think there's a form of alienation that's happening so she is using it almost as a tool of alienating to show us what's behind the myth at the same time myth is also bringing us closer to you know things we can't really explain almost like a ritual where we really connect even more so I think the usage of myth is like a it's suicide of the coin you know I feel it does both the things and using it as a theatrical tool is definitely works both ways and I think no I was exactly going to say the same thing because I had the impression of her using myths as a way to trivialize things which is not so common to use a myth for but considering that she and she also seems to talk about how she has been writing the plays at the immediate moment when they the things have happened she didn't really necessarily have the time to like think about it and have her emotions settle so she's really resettling the emotions with using myth as if something oh we all know that but I don't you know but which we not necessarily which we don't I mean myth is and all these pictures of we use usually for something hidden but this is like transparent myth and hidden emotions and feelings about what is actually happening because we still don't know how to communicate that I think Brechtu in the time of World War II Captain Kriegstaggebuch the war diaries where he every day wrote things down, collaged, put it together and I would see that work also in a way of her and of course saying that the war has existed throughout centuries, millenniums, kings that's why she uses that and that we you know paradox expression that we need to know about history because then we learn that we do not learn from history and but we have to remind all of us about it but still there's some more comments or thoughts and after that big evening yeah following up on the myth while I was listening to what you wonderful performance of I kept on thinking of who's wearing the emperor's new clothes and maybe the story of the emperor's new clothes is that weird we are the ones who are wearing the emperor's new clothes and we are as Aldous Huxley said the truth will make you mad and maybe that's what she's trying to do your own way thank you, some other I got the sense of listening to as you put it like a flood of words and I caught myself regularly hanging on to a snippet of meaning and then feeling it dissolve or fade away and that continued to happen and that may be a testament to the way in which it was read calling out the pieces that have a clarity that you can truly see and then it dissolves do you sense that that was intentional to perhaps mirror the senselessness of our times or is there something else at work the way I mean I don't know what she wants because in my opinion she's just a genius so I don't know exactly I'm just trying to kind of instinctively feel where she would maybe one corner of where she goes and I think that this is literally her inner monologue and so whenever you are whenever we feel strongly about a certain situation you know we have all these little and so I think that this is how we all feel we all have these inner monologues within ourselves that don't really allow us to accept the moment in which we live in rather just keep ourselves within these senses I don't know I can't remember which way exactly put it but it's I don't think it's concrete in any way it's just a mess and that's what's happening so I think in that sense it's so precise in this messness that she makes I don't know if that makes even the answer but maybe we can ask another player we can ask you we will see your play about Saddam Hussein about another you know dictator or queen king or leader or something how does listening to this text I guess it's the first time too what is your impression so his play will be on on Saturday I think at 8 o'clock also here if I might put you on this what is your reaction on this what you just heard I didn't like the text at all yeah tell us why tell us why I thought it was kind of this kind of leftist rant that didn't get to the point of anything so I didn't I couldn't collect to what she had to say about this I went to visit the Trump Tower today this is my first time in New York so I was just walking around and I visited this tower it's so amazing such a crazy building and such a crazy figure and Masha was fabulous and really versatile it was a great pleasure watching you but as a text I thought it was kind of I don't know there's this kind of irony which is kind of conserved for I don't know left wing liberals kind of this kind of irony of taking the bad guys and smearing them out and in a way I think it misses something about this crazy phenomenon called Donald Trump just saying oh the dictator the king wants this the king wants that I didn't like it I'm sorry that's fine she does a diagnosis the golden furniture this kind of royal idea of the royal family of people who by being the son or the nephew or the son-in-law are being appointed she does a given analysis but of course it is a mad rant quite precisely but also refusing actually interpretation as to your question that she actually doesn't really also know herself or is it going to and that one cannot explain that perhaps mythical thinking or stories can't be explained that's why we need the mystery that's how they do work but she is a great wordsmith so yeah over here hello I would like to like agree with what you and I think well I'm coming from Prague Czech Republic I'm the guest of Penvoices Festival as an author and I think it kind of it is an example this text I mean I haven't understood everything I know Alfreda Jelinek's work pretty well everything almost was translated into Czech and I would say there are two kinds of plays or literary works in general and like either either the author kind of wants the audience to laugh with him or her at the people outside of the theatre or the author kind of laughs at the people in the theatre or wants the people in the theatre to laugh at themselves which is I think much more powerful and artistically meaningful approach I would say and I think that unfortunately this Alfreda Jelinek's text kind of you know creates this community of us this self-assuring community that is laughing at the stupidity outside and once the text does not really provoke self-reflection and does not does not trigger some kind of painful process or does not make us uncomfortable with ourselves then it's not really then it lacks something that I think is very important for art to have so I don't know if your sort of criticism is about something similar but I mean I'm just like yeah I mean I'm sorry I don't want to persuade either of you in any way to think differently but just to her defense first of all this is not the whole play there is like I don't know 30 more pages or so so like this is just one third of the play and then for example in particular what you have just said perhaps I haven't read it in the right tone but she says exactly what she said basically she says look at us we all think we're just all of us and we're not I mean this is our biggest problem because we think we're only speaking to our people whereas there are other people who have other opinions and so to an extent she I think is actually being pretty harsh in her own way and I also feel like she and there are a lot of pages where you didn't do the whole play also in the parts that we're missing I feel there is a lot of I don't feel like there's a moment where she says not even in the entire play where she's like oh I'm really I tell you what way to go or like I know everything and you don't like I feel I do feel like yes I get the rant feeling like I know what you mean and I think that that's also often how when she writes I feel just like I was saying like goes thought to thought and just keeps going but she does cover all the political issues right now she goes through every single issue and covers it and yeah I really feel also I wanted to when you were saying the ironic feeling that you got I totally know what you mean and that is I think it might be sarcasm too a bit it's a very Austrian thing it's like very deeply ingrained in our culture and I've had I've been wanting to do like a Thomas Bernhard play here forever and I just I go through his plays and I'm like I can't translate this correctly it's not and people are not going to it's not going to read it's just it's so deeply Viennese that you can't take it which is I mean it's not true it's been done and I've seen great works by him translated and even at BAM last year did an amazing like opera solo opera version I was just blown away because it worked but it's hard it's first of all hard to get Austrian German it's like very specific as any language it doesn't matter but it's just a very we have like it's very deeply weird sarcastic dark and it doesn't often make sense and it's kind of part of our culture and it's this constant like you know this is like weird sarcasm that is sometimes annoying especially I feel in the states like it could be really annoying because I feel people here are more open about things often in general I feel I don't take so I'm actually quite interested what has been just really revealed that this is only a fraction of the play can somebody sort of give us an idea of what the whole play what is the structure what we just heard how is it sort of within the whole work yeah can you tell us a little more about the play the structure is pretty much the same it's just there's more I think it in a way it could be the beginning in the middle of an entry there is no dramatic structure I think it is and that kind of post-traumatic writing a stream of consciousness and I actually also would say very much he does also look at us where we are I don't really think with that word she said we are the good guys and the outside you know just we love it maybe that's also how we read the text a text also reads us and not just we have so it is quite a devastating analysis because she does often as a we and us so I think it comes across especially I think to an American audience of arrogant European leftist writers come up but I think it's much in a way it goes deeper but still there is big arguments do you know she does appeal to the intellect of a smart writer and doesn't work is it the emotion that you have to go through like Brecht would say you know no you have to appeal to it but was he successful as much and then in a way as others who said actually no you don't have the distance to this text I do think it's a very valid artistic experiment to create a wall of words to show a resistance to reflect in also these relentlessness of the news that crash upon us like wave after wave every day and she kind of puts it at least in it puts it into a form and I think it's a strong piece of resistance in a way but also perhaps giving up that it might be changing it doesn't have at all the mission to you know I think to give an ideology or someone change your life to change politics it's a brutal analysis in a way of a situation but of course it lends itself to the people who are in the room that we see it's just written for us I think she writes it for everybody I think she would love to see this in the most conservative big theater of 2000 seats in Vienna it's not written for people like us actually I believe it's really interesting that you're saying that because I think the setting 100% but I think often and often with her text I feel the trap is to read it as an audience and also in terms of production to have it be a play-play like she's actually an experimental like this is experimental work it's almost goes into it's very abstract and it goes into a bit the avant-garde kind of in a way I feel just I mean all her works it's there is something very abstract about her work and I think a trap is to produce it as let's have a regular theater play because I think this this reaction can happen very easily it's just a tweak you know it's so hard it's so hard to we don't know what but it's also with her I mean even though she deals with very contemporary situations when you read in her text like Facebook you can stare at that word for five minutes and be ashamed and just kind of realize it completely differently from when she says it because it's you don't expect her to use that word because it's so trivial and colloquial and like you expect her to surprise you with and then she uses mythical for a joke and so she has like face the nation yeah it's to face book of faces yeah some more yeah could you take the mic sorry thank you I don't mean to like address you directly but your comment made me think about I don't go to much theater I have read a lot of Alfreda's work as well that's mostly why I came here but I appreciate her because of her brutality and relentlessness and I'm just like bring it on like I with me with your text in your words almost and this idea of like plays that laugh at the community outside versus plays that laugh at people inside the theater those people in the theater I would imagine like elected to go there and use something about it so they were asking for maybe to be whipped or in a masochistic way because that punishment gives them pleasure and they wanted it and she's giving it to you she's whipping you and everyone and herself and everyone's getting whipped and punished and I guess I don't know but I'm interested in what that comment that you said because I think it is important one to laugh at everyone around you and feel good about yourself because of that but true so my staff gives me signs like this over time I think it means we should stop is that true because we are over time normally it's till 9.30 and we are already out of here we are all going to go to the archive bar which is around here on 36 between 5th and Madison in the middle but on the north side no the south side so I hope you can come there and you will join us but you really thank you for coming and participating and showing interest in the work of Efride Jelenig one of the Nobel laureates and also a great writer for the theater and I hope you will make it to Saturday