Reading
© Nadine Poncioni
“…perhaps he knew something about Styrian calves and cows and about Upper Styrian pigs and Lower Styrian hotbeds; he certainly knew nothing about art and culture...”
A record.
Drawing on a chapter from MY PRIZES, Tamara Metelka and Nicholas Ofczarek reconstruct the awarding of the Austrian State Prize for Literature to Thomas Bernhard and the scandal it triggered. The result is a humorous yet razor-sharp study of Austria’s fraught relationship between art and politics.
“The state is a structure doomed to fail, and the people are condemned to perpetual infamy and feeblemindedness.”
This statement by Thomas Bernhard is part of the notorious acceptance speech he delivered at the Austrian State Prize ceremony in 1968 – a speech that caused a scandal. “Everything is ridiculous if you think about death!” he shouted after the Minister of Education stormed out, slamming the door, followed by the enraged cultural dignitaries, while the writer Rudolf Henz rushed to the podium and shook his fist at the laureate.
When Nicholas Ofczarek and Tamara Metelka bring Thomas Bernhard’s legendary text “The Austrian State Prize” from the collection My Prizes to the stage, the result is a literary-musical evening of merciless precision and unexpected wit.
Bernhard, the eternal provocateur, settles scores with the cultural establishment in his autobiographical notes – sharp, comic, and brutally honest. Ofczarek and Metelka read, perform, breathe, and celebrate this text with a passion that can only come from deep love for the material. Between linguistic rhythm, irony, and furious dialogue, a play unfolds about the vanities of the art world and the impossibility of escaping them.
A high-caliber chamber play between literature, theater, and music – pointed, intelligent, unforgettable.
Experience Thomas Bernhard anew with three artists who unite language, music, and artistic integrity in perfect form.
