Nicholas Ofczarek & Tamara Metelka: The Austrian State Prize

He was the most controversial Austrian writer of the last century. His plays were scandals and great successes, as they held a mirror up to Austrian sentimentality and historical amnesia. His award-winning novels, with their precise exaggerations and musical repetitions, depict vast landscapes of the soul in decline. Thomas Bernhard was one of the most revered and most reviled poets of the Republic. That he was also an exceedingly critical and combative contemporary is evidenced, among other things, by his autobiographical writings "My Prizes."

The acting duo Tamara Metelka and Nicholas Ofczarek reads the probably funniest text in the collection, "The Austrian State Prize," and reconstructs the sensational award ceremony that made headlines and wrote literary history. When Bernhard was awarded the State Prize, he perceived it as a perfidious insult – after all, it was the so-called small State Prize, intended for emerging talents. Following what he considered an incompetent laudation by the minister, he effectively launched a counterattack in his acceptance speech.

Tamara Metelka, the head of the Max Reinhardt Seminar, and Burgtheater star Nicholas Ofczarek read Bernhard's account of the award ceremony – supplemented by quotes from his works that illuminate his literary references and deepen the understanding of his political stance. The scandalous acceptance speech will also be heard.
Thomas Bernhard: My Prizes, Suhrkamp, 2010.