Burgtheater
Jelinek & Rau

In May 2025, eighty years after the end of the Second World War, one of the most extraordinary productions in recent theater history will have its Austrian premiere: Burgtheater. The play by Nobel Prize laureate Elfriede Jelinek, which has been barred from the stage for forty years, will finally be performed at Vienna's Burgtheater itself!

Starting now, keep track of developments on this complex artistic work against nationalism, hypocrisy, blind complicity and censorship on our website. The Free Republic of Vienna video team will accompany Milo Rau and his cast and crew through every important stage of production: from research and casting to rehearsals and socio-political debates.

Elfriede Jelinek's reputation as a ‘Nestbeschmutzerin’ – someone who fouls her own nest – was cemented during the media scandal surrounding the 1985 premiere of Burgtheater in the then German capital Bonn: ‘I could have appeared in Vienna's city center as an angel and surrounded by a halo, and people would still have screamed: There's the witch!’ In response, Jelinek barred the play about Austria's Nazi involvement, as told through the Wessely-Hörbiger family of actors.

Now Jelinek has granted Swiss director and Festwochen artistic director of the Vienna Festival, Milo Rau, the exclusive rights to stage Burgtheater - at the scene of the crime itself! The New York Times once called Rau the ‘most scandalous’ director of our time, the FAZ opined on the occasion of his first edition of the Vienna Festival as artistic director: ‘The artistic director from Switzerland has enthusiastic admirers and profound adversaries; he seems to leave no-one cold.’ No wonder, then, that the advance announcement of Elfriede Jelinek's collaboration with Milo Rau caused a stir in the press – and the Austrian media spoke of the ‘highlight of the 2024/25 season’.