Fiddler, Allyson (2002) Staging Jörg Haider : protest and resignation in Elfriede Jelinek’s Das Lebewohl and other recent texts for the theatre. Modern Language Review, 97 (2). pp. 353-364. ISSN 0026-7937
Abstract
Elfriede Jelinek may have withdrawn her plays from the mainstream stages of Austria, but her stance is anything but one of political resignation. In fact, the idea of resignation is mobilised throughout Jelinek’s oeuvre as an ironic provocation to her reader. In her short drama Das Lebewohl, Jelinek provides a cultural response to Jörg Haider’s resignation from the leadership of the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (and thus as vice-Chancellor of Austria). This article seeks to show how Jelinek satirizes Haider and his ‘farewell’, and explores the frictions and parallels between the dramatists’ two intertexts – Jörg Haider’s own published reflections and Aeschylus’s Oresteia.