Sun / Air / Ashes

The sun beats down – and as it does, forests burn, whole swathes of land turn arid, while elsewhere the sea level rises and rivers cause huge floods. The sun laughs – and as it does, the air too rejoices that it will soon be able to breathe again at last, freed from all the filth it has been burdened with. For a long time, human beings thought they could rule the air just as they could rule earth, fire and water; they thought they could exploit nature‘s elements indefinitely and at will. This was fatal hubris. Because now, with cheerful serenity and merciless force, nature finally strikes back, taking revenge for what it has been subjected to ever since the dawn of time. What remains in the end is: ashes.

First, in a monologue written entirely from the perspective of the sun, then in a polyphonic discourse about the air, and lastly in the later added requiem Ashes, Elfriede Jelinek tries to instill order in the elements, «if it’s the last thing I do». Inevitably this attempt ends in chaos, and she finds herself literally at the limits of her language. This language «naturally» also marks the limits of our thinking, and is barely able to grasp the potential end of the world – although it can at least conceive of the impending end of the «monsters in human form».

«Elfriede Jelinek pulls you into her swirling vortex of associations, to conjure up the environmental catastrophe with mythical force, without even once mentioning the term climate change ... She weaves a complex and clever network full of cross-references, as if she wants to force the audience to make new connections, so that the harsh truth no longer fades away on routine paths of thought.» (Süddeutsche Zeitung)
«Sun / Air acts with its poetic force directly, stirs up and disturbs. Magnificent.» (Nachtkritik)
«Ashes, in turn, anticipates in the title what it will be about: what remains of humans and nature – ashes to ashes. Jelinek links the loss of her husband with the end of the world as we know it: The personal and the global, here it becomes one, woven into a single large lament on the inadequacy of humans ... Jelinek was often bitter and angry. But she was never this sad.» (Die deutsche Bühne)