Only a few weeks after Donald Trump's second victory in the U.S. presidential elections, Elfriede Jelinek responded with a play – or rather an ironic celebratory poem – titled Endsieg. In it, she mockingly sings of the new ruler, portraying Donald Trump as a saviour who will lead us all out of misery.

The production follows the rise of the alt-right movement in the United States and the formation of MAGA (Make America Great Again – the designation of Trump's political base), as well as the use of memes as instruments of cultural warfare. Jelinek traces the campaign and the "final crusade" that led to Trump's electoral victory, capturing striking events and turning points, but above all the escalating rhetoric saturated with messianic and chiliastic imagery and slogans. From this material she creates a dark, surreal poem. Her vision of a conquered future world evokes a fusion of medieval fantasies about the return of a king and dystopian literature, while remaining overtly ironic.

Jelinek's grotesque serves as a tool of social satire and a call to return to critical thinking, civic courage, and human integrity. The power of her imagination and metaphorical imagery is strikingly universal — disturbingly symbolic, yet healthily subversive.

Elfriede Jelinek, Nobel Prize laureate in Literature and tireless critic of political ignorance, egotism, populism, fascism, racism, nationalism, and other pathologies of power, is also an original poet whose texts overflow with layered metaphor and imagery. They are sharp and uncompromisingly ironic, even sardonic, yet deeply human in their passionate defence of the victims of ruthless authority and social violence.

ENDSIEG // DOBYTIE

Elfriede Jelinek

PREMIERE: 7 November 2025

Venue:
Malá scéna STU
Dostojevského rad 5221
811 09 Bratislava
Slovakia

Duration: 90 minutes

Creative Team

Author: Elfriede Jelinek
Translation and dramaturgy: Martin Kubran
Concept, adaptation and direction: Dávid Paška
Concept and set design: Julius Leon Seiler
Concept and costume design: Maria-Lena Poindl
Music: Ivan Acher
Production: Michal Denci
Camera: Ráchel Rimarčíková

Cast

Zuzana Fialová
Robert Roth
Annamária Janeková
Dávid Hartl