The study at hand discusses comprehensively a range of poetical ethical and political
questions involved in the staging of Elfriede Jelinek's Princess Dramas [Prinzessinnendramen]
as the Austrian Nobel Prize for Literature winner's first work on the Australian stage.
Introducing the 'poetic of an arriving artist' as a productive approach to staging Jelinek's
plays internationally the author of this study and director of the production consequently
scrutinises this poetic's grounding in a poststructural reconception of the 'palimpsest' as a
dramaturgical figure of thought. He points to the danger of unintentionally causing
disempowering effects through emancipatory strategies of empowerment and eventually comes up
with a series of timely proposals for effective and responsible artistic activity in 21st
century immigration societies of an ever-globalising world. Engaging with Jelinek's
mythoclastic work serves thus as a highly relevant springboard for giving new impulses to
current debates on artistic freedom political correctness diasporic art production and
Australian discourses of indigeneity.
