Glocal Eco-politics and Overflowing Dramaturgy : Karin Beier's Production of Elfriede Jelinek's Das Werk / Im Bus / Ein Sturz

Jürs-Munby, Karen (2025) Glocal Eco-politics and Overflowing Dramaturgy : Karin Beier's Production of Elfriede Jelinek's Das Werk / Im Bus / Ein Sturz. Journal of Austrian Studies, 58. ISSN 2327-1809 (In Press)

Text (Ju_rs-Munby_Glocal_Eco-politics_and_Overflowing_Dramaturgy_clean_May_2025_with_figures_inserted_)
Ju_rs-Munby_Glocal_Eco-politics_and_Overflowing_Dramaturgy_clean_May_2025_with_figures_inserted_.pdf - Accepted Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.
Download (234kB)

Abstract

This article analyses Karin Beier’s production of Elfriede Jelinek’s Das Werk / Im Bus / Ein Sturz as an example of glocal eco-politics which connects local man-made catastrophes with national and global dynamics. It situates this extraordinary trilogy production within the context of an ideal of the municipal theatre that is modelled on the Greek ‘polis’ and appeals to active citizenship. With references to Timothy Morton’s ‘dark ecology’ and Jean-François Lyotard’s concept of the oikos as the ‘secluded’, it analyses how the performance creates an ecological tragic as well as comic experience through its dramaturgical devices. It argues that, together with the associative and overflowing qualities of Jelinek’s writing, the production’s increasingly overflowing dramaturgy works affectively as a disruption of political discourse and has the capacity to cause the audience to reflect on their civic and democratic responsibility, awakening their desire to intervene in the ecological politics of their city.