EIN ÜBERTRITT

About the show

Ein Übertritt (A Crossing), written by Elfriede Jelinek for the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, poses a question of no less magnitude than that of human nature—what it is, in general and in particular, that defines us as human beings. And where—mindful of the date—one asks about human nature, the question of human un-nature is never far behind: the question of bestial and brutalized beings, and the question of the "German essence." Tracing the linguistic unconscious through a rich web of associations, Ein Übertritt explores transformations and confusions, the crossing from one form of being to another. Animals turn into humans and humans into beasts; ghosts and revenants awaken to new agency; and the historical markers and possibilities of transition—from dictatorship to democracy and vice versa, from war to peace and back again—are put to the test in a manner that is at once wittily critical of language and darkly oracular. Jossi Wieler—a pivotal and multi-award-winning director of Jelinek’s work, known for productions such as Wolken.Heim, er nicht als er, Macht nichts, Rechnitz (Der Würgeengel), and Angabe der Person—is staging the world premiere of Ein Übertritt in long-standing collaboration with set and costume designer Anna Viebrock, timed to coincide with the 80th birthday of Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Elfriede Jelinek.