Ein Sportstück

Cast

variable casting, min. 5 actors

Jelinek uses the mass phenomenon of sport as a metaphor for all the excessive endeavours people in financially secure, developed nations carry out to stay beautiful, strong and “fashionable,” even if only at home in front of the computer. Fitness and body cults as well as the idolatry of sportsmen as modern heroes are portrayed using Andi, a farmer’s lad and undead bodybuilder who emulates his role model Arnold Schwarzenegger and has destroyed himself with anabolic steroids. At the same time, the writer herself appears as “someone who fouls her own nest,” an “undifferentiated, aging moralist” and killjoy. What starts out as a physical training ritual ends as a frenzied national hate campaign.

World premiere
23.01.1998 Burgtheater Wien (Director: Einar Schleef)

Translations
Bulgarian (Translator: Vladko Murdarov)
Czech: Sportstyk - aneb Sportovni drama (Translator: Zuzana Augustova)
Czech premiere 25.04.2006 Prazske Komorni Divadlo, Prag (Director: David Jářab, Jan Nebeský und Dušan Pařízek)
English: Sports Play (Translator: Penny Black)
English language premiere 11.07.2012 Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster / Just a Must Productions - Touring production (Director: Vanda Butkovic)
French: Une pièce de sport (Translator: Olivier Cadiot)
Italian: Sport. Una Pièce (Translator: Roberta Cortese)
Italian premiere 17.01.2009 -Teatro dell'Acquario, Cosenza
Japanese (Translator: Masayuki Tsuzaki)
Japanese premiere 05.03.16 Chiten, Rohm Theatre Kyoto / KAAT Yokohama
Portuguese: Peça esporte (Translator: Camilo Schaden)
Portuguese language premiere 02.10.2015 Sao Paulo, Brasilien (Director: Clayton Batista Mariano)
Russian
Spanish: La guerra del deporte (Translator: Graciela Berton)
Spanish language premiere 15.12.2011 Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago de Chile (Director: Karina Bacelli)

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