GLOBAL LECTURE FOR DONALD TRUMP ON INAGURATION DAY

The theatrical dismantling of the populist rhetoric of the “new old king” will be broadcast free of charge worldwide.

RESISTANCE NOW! With a “poem” and dark mockery against the raging bluster of the Trumpists. On 20 January, Inauguration Day, Milo Rau directs parallel online readings in Iraq and the USA of Elfriede Jelinek’s new play ENDSIEG | THE SECOND COMING – a response to the re-election of Donald Trump. The new English translation by Gitta Honegger will be presented for the very first time, read by the actress Nicole Ansari-Cox in New York/USA. The actress Ursina Lardi will simultaneously read the German original in Mosul/Iraq. With introductory words by Elfriede Jelinek on the occasion of the Iraqi-American parallel reading, followed by a discussion with Milo Rau and Gitta Honegger, moderated by Frank Hentschker, executive director of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center.

ENDSIEG | THE SECOND COMING is presented by the Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen) | Free Republic of Vienna in cooperation with the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center / New York. With generous permission of Rowohlt Publishing House, Hamburg, Germany.

Democracy is in a serious crisis and people are confused. Elfriede Jelinek responded to Donald Trump’s second election victory with an important text: Endsieg, a grim sequel to Am Königsweg / On the Royal Road: The Burgher King, her play about the US election eight years ago.

Jelinek shows how his followers see the "new old king" as a divinely chosen redeemer. But the king is not alone, there are shadows behind him, his political and economic cliques, fighting for his attention and with each other. And the resistance is collapsing: "I say there is nothing more, there is nothing else, the other no longer exists, there is nothing to see, there is only the one left," states the blind seer. So, what is left besides Jelinek’s relentless exploration of our times?

ENDSIEG | THE SECOND COMING is another milestone in the international RESISTANCE NOW! campaign, in the name of which over 200 European cultural institutions have joined forces to combat the destruction of fundamental rights and freedom of expression by the new authoritarianism.

Milo Rau is also collaborating with Elfriede Jelinek for the first production of Elfriede Jelinek's play Burgtheater at the Vienna Burgtheater, premiering on 18 May as part of the Vienna Festival.