‘Maybe I should go to a rock concert instead of the underworld? …’

SHADOW. Eurydice says in London, Washington and New York, SCHATTEN (Eurydike sagt) in Vienna a few years ago: how do the English-language version and the Viennese stage production differ?

They are two different evenings, two completely different versions of Elfriede Jelinek’s text. One in German, one in English, faithfully translated by Gitta Honegger. One with three actresses, one a solo. Elfriede Jelinek composes her texts, writes a wealth of material and leaves it up to the director how and in what theatrical adaptation they will stage it in time and space. Her plays are mountains of text; you first have to read and reread your way to the summit. Which can differ if the conditions of the production and/or spatial setting change.

The disused Atzgersdorf coffin factory in Vienna’s 23rd district, where we’ve performed in a number of areas from the entrance to two large halls, played an important part in how we designed the evening. The three actresses covered the space with their bodies, charted it with their voices and – in combination with the live electronics by Wolfgang Musil – transformed it into a site of imagination. Everything that we found in the halls – a metal door, huge rotor blades from the kilns that used to dry wood for the coffins, a trench that we filled with water – was used. We developed the evening for and with that space. But despite that, it was possible to transfer it to other venues. Whatever their architecture may be like, we see it is an invitation to play with the spaces, not against them. That’s how it was with SCHATTEN (Eurydike sagt) at the Odeïon in Salzburg and at the Salzlager in Hall.

Alexandra Sommerfeld was on stage in Vienna and is now playing the English version, too … Tell us what’s so special about your long-term collaboration.

From my perspective, it’s the fact that we’ve perfected our joint craft, our theatrical language. On and off, we’ve been working together for over two decades. Alexandra is a master of playing theatrical games, of the false bottom. Again and again, she juggles different, sometimes conflicting potential identifications. With all that she succeeds in getting out of her skin, as if she were outside looking in, commentating on herself and calling everything into question. Theatre is a hall of mirrors that sets affects free and opens up conceptual spaces in several dimensions. And luckily Alexandra lived in the English-speaking world for a while, so she doesn’t have any problems with the foreign language.

Shadow is a solo performance …

… in terms of the number of actresses, yes. Otherwise, it includes the entire theatre. At bottom, this production is the radical escalation of our way of working – everything from the body, everything with the body, everything through the body.

Why is the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice still relevant today?

The romantic ideal of love between a man and a woman that even lasts beyond death is the sweet song of patriarchal rule. But beneath the image of symmetry between the lovers hides the power to interpret the body, sexuality, reproduction or even just the images that we make of ourselves. The binary order separates the world into intellect/nature, subject/object, heaven/hell and of course man/woman. Eurydice doesn’t want to leave Hades, doesn’t want to go back to her old life as the trophy wife of the great singer Orpheus. Exposing herself to the male gaze might have been exciting at times, but she knows what game was being played. The binary model has been a straightjacket for a long time – and not just for non-binary people.

Life after the myth?

People are free to do what they want. But they live in a society that’s constantly demanding images of them as well as different interpretations. We need to crack these codes and understand what they’re doing to us. That’s the only way that we can free ourselves of them. But then we’re already in the theatre …