{"id":207,"date":"2022-04-11T20:28:49","date_gmt":"2022-04-11T20:28:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/25\/?p=207"},"modified":"2026-06-19T06:43:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T06:43:35","slug":"jelineks-sports-play-as-satirical-polemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/25\/jelineks-sports-play-as-satirical-polemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Jelinek\u2019s Sports Play as Satirical Polemic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Cyrus Lane<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abstract<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Elfriede Jelinek\u2019s Sports Play<\/font> is widely accepted within the canon of postdramatic works, as defined by Hans-Thies Lehmann. It has no dramatic plot, and its sprawling speeches are assigned to choruses, both group and individual, rather than differentiated characters. At 121 pages of non-dramatic non-narrative text, the sheer volume of words and number of speakers has led scholars to see the play as presenting a wide range of conflicting perspectives on the theme of sports. Karen J\u00fcrs-Munby even views the play as a version of the ancient Greek notion of agon<\/font>, in which differing points of view are allowed to compete, thus engaging in the conflict inherent in democracy, without the violence of antagonism. This essay refutes that point of view, however, and approaches the play from an angle suggested by Jelinek herself. Having described her writing for the theatre as both polemical and satirical, this essay argues that Sports Play is a satirical polemic that argues a single point of view, which can be roughly summed up as, \u201csports are destructive.\u201d Linguistic satire supports this polemic by comically undercutting and disallowing the opposing point of view. Jelinek\u2019s anti-violence text is then, ironically, best understood through its combative generic categories. Sports Play<\/font>\u2019s language, along with Jelinek\u2019s transgressive presence within and outside the text attack and undermine sport and its attendant ideologies, while its chorality gives the play the semblance of agon and plurality of perspectives where none exists.

Keywords:<\/strong> Elfriede Jelinek, postdramatic theatre, violence, agon, Sports Play<\/font><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her 1998 theatre text Sports Play<\/em>, Austrian author Elfriede Jelinek has the speaker Man say, \u201cApparently I can\u2019t persuade you to the opposite point of view\u201d (71). With this line, Jelinek sends up her own text, in which her refusal to change her point of view is the<\/em> defining structural element. Rather than viewing Sports Play<\/em> as agonal, like Karen J\u00fcrs-Munby (\u201cAgon\u201d) or as containing a wide cross-section of conflicting perspectives, I propose that Sports Play<\/em> is an example of what Lehmann calls the \u201c\u2018monologization of dialogue\u2019 in drama,\u201d where a text is built around the \u201cexcessive consensus of the speakers\u201d and \u201cfigures talk not so much at cross-purposes but rather in the same direction\u201d (129). So, in which direction are the figures in Sports Play<\/em> talking? And how does the piece give the impression of arguing multiple points of view, when, in fact, the play\u2019s language is all working to prove a single point? How does consensus look like dissensus?<\/p>\n\n\n

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Elfriede Jelinek. Photo: Web\/Wikipedia<\/a><\/em>. Accessed 6 April 2022<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Taking my cue from Jelinek\u2019s statements that her work is in the Austrian-Jewish satirical tradition following her predecessor Karl Kraus (Pizer 500), that she works in a \u201cpolemical, satiric, exaggerated manner\u201d (Scheffer 30) and that her plays, specifically, are \u201cessays\u201d (Honegger, \u201cTr\u00fcmmerfrau\u201d 29), I am viewing Sports Play<\/em> through the lenses of polemics and satire to understand both the play\u2019s structure and the way its choral figures and language give the impression <\/em>of a plurality of perspectives. Importantly, polemic and satire are both grounded in the idea of an attack on a particular aspect of society. With its root in the ancient Greek word for war, polemos<\/em>, a polemic is \u201can aggressive attack on or refutation of the opinions or principles of another\u201d (\u201cPolemic\u201d). The definition of satire Scheffer applies to Jelinek\u2019s writing is \u201caesthetically socialized aggression,\u201d in which \u201ctwo things are essential . . . one is wit or humour, the other an object of attack\u201d (Frye qtd. in Scheffer 4). The tools of satire are found at play on every page of Sports Play<\/em>: \u201cparody, irony . . . grotesque, or word games\u201d (Scheffler 4).  As both categories contain the notion of attack, one might see the polemical lens as redundant and only view Sports Play<\/em> as satire, since the category employs both attack and<\/em> humour. But I maintain that the overall structure of the text is polemical and that all of its parts fight to prove Jelinek\u2019s argument that sports are socio-culturally destructive, with its linguistic satire working to undermine opposing points of view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putting the terms together, then, I propose that Sports Play<\/em> is a satirical polemic and that, ironically, Jelinek\u2019s anti-violence play is best understood through its combative generic categories. Sports Play<\/em>\u2019s satirical language, along with Jelinek\u2019s use of autofictional masks attack and undermine sport and its attendant ideologies, while its chorality gives the play the semblance of agon<\/em> and plurality of perspective where none exists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to understand how Jelinek\u2019s text functions, it\u2019s useful to first pry apart its polemical and satirical elements and examine them separately, before demonstrating how they work in concert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polemic and the Semblance of Agon<\/em><\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

As a polemic, all the elements of the play work to prove a single point. Arguably, that point could fit into the nutshell statement: \u201cSports are destructive.\u201d Evidence of this point of view is not difficult to come by. Describing the ideological link between sports and broader societal violence, Jelinek is quoted as saying there is \u201can essentially violent and fascist politics of the body in the everyday and seemingly harmless cultural phenomenon of sports\u201d (Fleig 1991). Elsewhere she calls sports \u201cthe organized form of supreme banality\u201d (1992). In her foreword to Penny Black\u2019s English translation, J\u00fcrs-Munby sums up Jelinek\u2019s views of sports as found in Sports Play<\/em>, saying the text is<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jelinek\u2019s most systematic treatment of . . . sports as a mass phenomenon, especially the drives and mechanisms that turn individuals into uniformly behaving crowds with a potential for violence . . . Rather than regarding sports as a civilising force, she presents it as an \u201cembodiment of war in peacetime\u201d . . . Sports Play<\/span> is furthermore concerned with the cult around the body and around sports personalities in the mass media . . . For her, the daily consumption of sports personality gossip contributes to dangerous popular sentiments and underpins a sense of national identity and xenophobia. . . . (28)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, when she wrote the play, Jelinek saw no good in sports. She speaks to this blind spot in a 2012 interview with Simon Stephens: \u201cAt the time, I did not realise that football, for example, can also play an incredible political role (and a peacemaking role\u2014as much as football can cause war, it can also cause peace; football is a kind of Geiger counter of civilisation, or rather a moment of acceleration, a catalyst), in a good way as well as a bad\u201d (Jelinek and Stephens 15). Having entertained a positive political element to sports, Jelinek then elaborates on what she calls the \u201cpsychoanalytical component,\u201d saying \u201cI see sports as everything: transfer, counter-transfer, yes, also catharsis, as in Greek tragedy. When I wrote the play, I still underestimated this\u201d (15). So, clearly, by the 2012 Just A Must Theatre production of Sports Play<\/em> in London and her interview with Stephens, Jelinek\u2019s views had expanded to allow that sports might<\/em> have an up-side. However, this more balanced view is nowhere to be found in the text, first published in 1998. Sports are given no footing, allowed no value; any argument in their defense is utterly undermined. And yet, the play seems<\/em> to give equal strength to arguments both for and against sports, with J\u00fcrs-Munby going so far as to describe the text as a \u201creworking of agon<\/em>\u201d (\u201cAgon\u201d 11). This widely encompassing ancient Greek notion refers to a democratically healthy place, arena, assembly, action, struggle or contest that \u201cremoves the violent and destructive aspects from the antagonistic and transfers the enemy-other into the adversary-other\u201d (Mouffe et al. 971). Vital to agon<\/em>, then, is the idea of adversaries, opponents of comparable force engaged in competition that affirms and bolsters the democratic project. Elsewhere, Mouffe explains the difference between agonism and antagonism. She writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While in an antagonistic type of political relation the conflicting parties perceive their opponents as \u201cenemies\u201d to be destroyed, in the agonistic one they treat them as \u201cadversaries,\u201d i.e. they recognize the legitimacy of the claims of their opponents<\/span>. (Mouffe and Martin 211; my emphasis)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in seeing sports as purely destructive, Jelinek delegitimizes<\/em> the claims of her opponents and the ideologies embedded in sporting and fitness culture. Rather than allowing for agon <\/em>in which the positive and negative aspects of sports are allowed to do battle, Sports Play<\/em> is a polemic against <\/em>sports. Jelinek tells Stephens that she lets \u201cideas and ideologies compete against each other\u201d (Jelinek and Stephens 18). But, to use a sporting metaphor, the fight is fixed.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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