Elfriede Jelinek: Rechnitz (The Exterminating Angel)
Photo courtesy of Budapest Autumn Festival
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The Exterminating Angel : By Elfriede Jelinek
HUNGARY
BUDAPEST • Thalia Theatre • Ongoing
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Elfriede Jelinek: Rechnitz (The Exterminating Angel)
Jossi Wieler, director
Performance in German with Hungarian surtitles
On the night of March 24, 1945 a strange party lasting till dawn was held in the castle of Rechnitz [formerly Rohonc] in Burgenland. As the “highlight” of the evening the Nazi leaders who were the guests of Countess Margit Batthyány shot close to two hundred Hungarian Jewish forced labourers. No one has ever been called to account: the countess fled in time to Switzerland before the German capitulation. She lived there until her death in 1989 and it was from here that she helped those directly responsible for the massacre to flee abroad. She was never brought to trial for her deeds.
In her recently premièred drama, Elfriede Jelinek, winner of the Nobel Prize, Jelinek makes no attempt to reconstruct the event: her look into the past is more of an archeology of language, an attempt to reveal the touched-up details of the crime, but also an attempt to speak of the contemporary dealing with the past.The première was held not in Austria but in Munich, the city that played such an important role in Hitler’s rise to power, where the performance directed by Jossi Wieler was one of the outstandingly important events of the past season. Jossi Wieler was born in Switzerland. From 1972-1980 he lived in Tel Aviv, where he studied direction and where he staged his first plays at Habima Theater.
Cast:
Katja Bürkle, André Jung, Hans Kremer, Steven Scharf, Hildegard Schmahl
Set, costumes: Anja Rabes
Lighting: Max Keller
Music: Wolfgang Siuda
Dramaturgy: Julia Lochte
Budapest Autumn Festival Website
Detailed schedule information:
19h
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| Contact: |
Thalia Theatre
1065 Nagymező u. 22-24
Budapest, Hungary
Tel: (36 ) 1 331 00 50
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