Sabine Hollweck

and Daniel
Brockhaus in Sleeping
Beauty, directed by
André Bastian, 2005.
Courtesy of Theater
in der Tonne
Elfr iede Jelinek

Translated by Gitta Honeg ge r

Sleeping Beaut y

PRINCESS My existence, my being is sleep, constant in my being, so to speak, so that I

therefore life is my logical limit. But maybe
my being is waiting for the kiss. Waiting
for the kicks, the free kick into a different
way of being. Then it’s time out for being?
No, it’s overtime! Any one of you princes,
step up, time to score! I would like to have
an experience, but I am paralyzed by my
inability to wake up. The question is: Are
you even the person for whose kiss I should
be waiting? I would rather not ask the
question, since I don’t even know who I will
be when I’ve woken up. In the meantime
I will have been dead. That is, I am still
dead at this time. But unlike others, I am
not permitted to dissolve in death and turn
into nothingness, quite the contrary, I was
given the task to pull death into myself until
I almost burst; he is the consultant of and
would overcome his chasm and work every
day for the possibility TO BE. Why should I
have to work so hard, only to end up as dead
as before? Next question: Who is the person
waking up? Whom will you kiss? I’ve never
seen you before. How should I know who
you were before? I have lost all connection to
life. Yes, Being is incomparable, but what can
one do? Anyway, there’s nothing to compare
it with. You just come here and say, you are a
prince. Well, I suppose you must be, since I
seem to have woken up this moment, which
could only be possible only because of you, as
Mrs. F. predicted ages ago. No matter who
you are, I have to take what I get, to be sure.
I am not talking in my sleep, from which I
wake up occasionally. Apparently, I really
am awake now. Mrs. F. and her predictions

Copyright © 2005 by Elfriede Jelinek. English translation copyright © 2005 by Gitta Honegger. All rights reserved. No
part of this play may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
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CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that, being fully protected under the copyright laws of
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lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved.
Particular emphasis is laid on the questions of readings, permission for which must be secured from the author’s publisher:
Sabine Oswald, Berlin Verlag, Greifswalder Strasse 207, 10405 Berlin, Germany.

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 jelinek
that not even my soul would bear staying in
my body forever! And for that fortune-tellers
like her dare to charge money, incredible!
How could you bear it, my dear Mr. Prince,
if not even my soul could! Would you be
kind enough to tell me who I am, since I am
about to conclude from this kiss who you are?
In that regard, I am a step ahead of you. Is
Prince just your name, or are you really one?
How stupid. You have to be one, see above;
otherwise I’d still be asleep. But who are you
really? Which country do you have in mind
to rule? Mine, I bet. And for that I let myself
be pricked by a thorn or whatever it was.
For a while I rummaged inside myself quite
senselessly to find the source of the violent
pain, though I could easily see the thorn,
that pointed thing, you know. And then I
was gone. Out. Film torn. Finished. Who
am I? Where am I? It occurred to me now
that you must be a prince and I submit to this
truth of your being. OK, many will envy me
because of you, but also for myself, because I
am also a princess. I appear on cover photos,
though not even those can prove to me who
I am. Maybe all people are princesses and
princes. This is how priests talk, and in their
struggles to survive people are stupid enough
to believe them. Be that as it may, all people
I know are hedges. At least, that’s a step in
the right direction. And the big guys treat
them mercilessly, like nature unto nature. I
vaguely remember. Roses. That’s enough to
make one insecure. What does it say here? A
woman says, it was a form of insanity. I hoped
to finally be able to live because of him. She
says: I wanted to live only for him and it
was as if I had found my soul only through
him, as if without him I was nothing but an
empty vessel and only he was to fulfill me,
and only with love. Bravo. This woman has
just been created and I can be the first one
to congratulate her. She is looking at a man
now and seems to know exactly who she has
to deal with. So she is getting ready to get
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the whole thing going and lasting, instead
of being content ruminating on what she
already has and enjoying the juicy pasture.
Now she asks her conquest: Are you the same
person you were yesterday? And will you be
the same tomorrow? The day after tomorrow?
Now that he’s already her heart and soul, she
also wants to know who he is? Unbelievable.
And if he says no, everything will collapse in
her. In my case, it’s only the hedge, a thorny
investment, that will collapse. But since you
must be Mr. Right, this hedge will rise and
become human instead. Would you please
take a step back now, so that you won’t get
stepped on, because my royal court will most
likely change right now from an overgrown
hedge back to human bodies again. I hope
the entrances haven’t been walled up in the
meantime, otherwise people in the shape of
their own bodies wouldn’t get in, poor things!
Not a rosy situation, let me tell you, even
though made of roses. Waking up from one
condition and not yet or no longer knowing
the other which one is supposed to get into.
I look at your tanned face, Mr. Prince, at the
gel in your dark hair and the muscles under
your T-shirt, I look for the knee and the ass
in your overly loose surfer pants and I ask:
Can it be that it is you somewhere underneath
there? Can it be that you are you? Can it be
that I am I? Can it be that you mean me?
It must be, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.
That is: If you hadn’t come here, neither of us
would be here. That is, without your coming
here, I wouldn’t exist, at least not yet. Thank
you.
PRINCE I was told I should come to you,
kiss you, and see what happens. Then take
it from there. Something will come out of
it in any case. I like what I see; it was worth
it — that much I can say already. I am power.
Whoever goes against me, loses himself,
especially if he wants to take the credit for
himself. It’s a good thing you realized right
away that you have to thank me and only

me for your existence. How should I say it:
I am I. As you know, I really am who I am.
That’s the way it is. I would like to be the
Eternal One, maybe that’s who I am, since I
haven’t died yet; on the contrary, I even raised
a dead person. With a kiss. Must be a nice
awakening: huddled up and hidden away for
so long, and then the first thing you see: God.
Me! I! I! I am the one who raises the dead.
Time says — and it is also called: I, and I am
here now. No one else. Little mouse, princess
dear, I am sure that earlier, when you were
still asleep and no one polished your nails,
you couldn’t give Being the slightest hint that
you were still around. Neither could you give
me the pleasure of a postcard, a letter, or a
call, even though my cell phone was always
turned on. That was just the point: I was
not to know where you are and I found you
nonetheless. I was the only one! Therefore
I simply MUST be God. He who knows
what no one else knows. Most probably I
even created you myself. If I am God, I can
do that. So there. And now I even did away
with time because while you were sleeping,
you were gone, as predicted, for a hundred
years, which now has become the past for
you, no, no, don’t worry, time didn’t go away.
Since time didn’t leave any marks on you, you
must have been in the hands of God, who
personally stopped the hands of the clock.
Yes. Because I am God, I was able to do that
sleeping beaut y
Sleeping Beauty.
Courtesy of Theater
in der Tonne
too, giving Being a hint that now that I kissed
you it should wind up the clock and chase
after you like a wild dog, so let the aging
begin! In a hundred years there won’t be any
more kissing; there’ll be plenty of lifting! But
of course, we don’t want to perceive time as
the enemy of eternity, only as the enemy of
female beauty, because I as God can assure
you that our goal is not eternity, nor is it its
little sister, the eternity of values. So let’s have
the massacre, I mean the mascara, as long as
there’s still time for it, let’s get the wrinkle-
cover-up stick. They must have told you the
wrong thing. You can’t erase time or throw
fresh paint on it, once it’s there. When our
time has come we suddenly regret having a
body, which we dearly loved before. Because
our goal is a pleasant life to be written up in
magazines and shown on television. There’s
nothing like that in eternity, nothing to
report about. Nothing can happen after all,
because it’s always now and one can never
read it as the past. It certainly is pleasant for
you and me that we don’t have to examine
right now what eternity has in store for us,
I mean that we don’t have to examine what
eternity would mean to our lives. It could
mean, after all, that we could drop dead this
moment, or that we would have to kiss each
other in all eternity, because we could never
turn off this moment again, but later we
wanted to go skiing to have our picture taken,
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 jelinek

and those beloved television cameras would got it from me, after all! So then, I, your
want to be part of our wedding, wouldn’t creator, am telling you: your Being happens
they? Wouldn’t you also see it that way? now that I have delivered it to you. But if
you want to own it, as your stock-in-trade,
PRINCESS Well . . . let’s see. Sounds good.
something else will have to happen, which I
Preserving moments. At least we finally have
will show you right now.
some in stock again. Let’s assume that while I
was sleeping, I accepted the eternal as its own He puts on some sort of plush costume featuring a
genuine reality, and it must be something very big penis.
like that, since in my sleep I moved about
PRINCESS But nothing else has to happen! It
this timeless eternity like a fish in water.
has happened already! During my lifetime,
Moreover, I was prophesied eternal love by
I, as a princess, could save up life as an asset
a prince who would save me; love as another
which I will now invest in my relationship
one of your tacky eternal values — I beg
to you, Mr. Prince. I hope for good returns.
your pardon, that’s not one of yours? That’s
You are in the right place with me, I am not
supposed to be one of mine? I’m just saying,
a replica of someone else. Quite the contrary,
just because it has shown itself to me, love,
the others, on television, are replicas of
well, you still have to honor that voucher, Mr.
myself. They don’t know that every one of
Prince, we are in agreement on that, aren’t
them is the only thing, which, as an I, is not
we? Well, then, admittedly: I was in eternity,
another; no, they all want to be me. Imagine.
suddenly I am thrown into temporality, by
Before I fell asleep, they impressed upon me
you, my dear, but how can I understand
that the best experience is supposed to be
my being and the time in which I am I or,
experienced by a body, which, if possible,
let’s say, in which I am, how then should I
should not be one’s own. But when they told
understand time ahead of time? I am only
me that, they certainly didn’t have in mind
just starting to move within this coordinate
the kind of thing you are getting into right
system, according to which women are
now. That’s disgusting. However, I can sense
saying: I was totally fascinated by that man!
that it would be a mistake to look at life only
Furthermore, they are saying: He radiated
from my point of view. You might like your
an inner strength, et cetera. Being isn’t just
body. Even so, princes like you come a dime
simply being there, something else is needed.
a dozen. Animals! I admit you succeeded in
I’ve been stored as a princess and stirred by
becoming someone else. You don’t look like
a prince. Do you really think that saying:
you at all anymore! Either I am crazy, or I
God is here, is the same as: The prince is
am unable to free myself of the incorrigible
here? A prince, after all, can be deposed by
and incorrect assumption that your body
his mother, the queen, because he screwed a
was connected to your identity, but I guess
mean woman, but who should depose God?
I’ll have to. You — an other. And this other
Well, maybe even me, because I was also
has not been in you all this time, I hope, or I
eternal, at least for a while? Sleeping Beauty
wouldn’t have kissed you. What am I talking
as the one who defeated God! Won’t that
about? There was nothing I could have done.
cause some stir in the news and a delicious
It was you who kissed me, after all! I am sure
stir-fry to go!
you were bought by Mrs. F. Is this why you
PRINCE I can see already, if I don’t explain it wished to be another? So you wouldn’t have to
to you, you’ll never understand your Being, be here? You put on a costume. I watched you
and who could explain it better than I! You carefully. Did you do that to become another?

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 sleeping beaut y

Or to be even more of what you already didn’t foresee such a thing, would have had to
are, that is, to highlight your individuality? ask myself: Was this really necessary? What
I’m just saying. Because now you are even did I do wrong? Is this the princess or is she
showing me your soul, which apparently stuck not? Would you have remained dead, I would
inside you like the caterpillar in the butterfly have asked myself in view of your corpse, now
or vice versa. That really wasn’t necessary. what, can I bring the dead body back to life
You’re an animal, Mr. Prince! I, on the other again? Why can’t I do it? Is this object human
hand, believe that I am an event, because at all or not? Can’t remember if I made it. Is it
I occur, not because I get into that sort of a corpse I am facing? Or what? Well, we’ll see
thing. Even though my clothes always used right now.
to be described in great detail, as if they had
He hands SLEEPING BEAUTY a white rabbit’s
been the most important aspect of myself. I
costume made of plush, with a vulva sticking
am always the same, otherwise I wouldn’t be
out, signaling her to put it on, which she does.
able to occur, otherwise I would always only
As soon as she is in her costume, the two start
just become, and I wouldn’t be recognized in
going at each other like crazy. The hedge collapses
my photographs. You, however, Mr. Prince,
on top of them and buries them underneath.
are another just now. I would have preferred
All kinds of animals come up from underneath,
that you stay who you were. In any case, I
mostly chickens behaving very animally — please
don’t need to put on God knows what, to be
mimic very precisely the behavior of animals!
somebody, that’s for sure.
Two chickens elegantly unfold a banner with the
PRINCE But you can only take place here, inscription: “Come to Austria! Fuck them all!”
because you are my property now, by way of
PRINCE and PRINCESS (together, somewhat
a kiss. Like any newborn, I could have easily
breathlessly) Well, at least we are not a
tricked you with a fake beard or a stiff blue
financially drained poultry empire. Corpses
collar. A baby doesn’t care what Daddy is
on the conveyor belt, sticking together even
wearing, it even finds him handsome in the
there. But to understand what happens to
hospital smock. The one I am now only has
the dead, we would have to go a step further,
to prove to you, that I, who am God, have the
we would have to be dead ourselves. It’s not
choice of who else I’d want to be. That wasn’t
enough to talk about death. One would have
yet necessary when I came to you. I could be
to live to be talking about it. But what are the
who I was. Simple, of course. I could easily
many poor dead doing? They don’t know that
have come as I was, as a prince. I awakened
they are dead, but they are, nonetheless. We
you with the revitalizing freshness of Tic
know that we will be dead someday and still
Tacs; with my mouth, so to speak, I painted
we go on living. But now we at least managed
the model of you which was presented to me.
to separate ourselves from our bodies and not
However, I only found what I expected to
be dead after all. That’s great progress, for
find. I only created what I wanted to create
which you can congratulate us. We are not
anyway. Nothing happened to me, nothing
yet going so far as to correct the assumption
happened to you. As an afterthought, I could
that we must die. But we do say that we have
say I found you accidentally. But rather I say,
been dead and that we are living now. Tried
I discovered you, recovered and made you,
both — no comparison! Go ahead, try it too!
and I am presenting you to the press. First
The comparison will make you feel very safe
something is made up and then it is shown.
in city traffic when you get here.
That’s the essence of creation, my specialty.
If you had been dead, I, like any creator, who End of play.

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