ENDSIEG: THE SECOND COMING
by
Elfriede Jelinek
September 2, 2025
A reading with Nicole Ansari-Cox, directed by Milo Rau
A live English reading of Elfriede Jelinek’s new play Endsieg: The Second Coming—a response to the re-election of Donald Trump. Translated by Gitta Honegger. Featuring Nicole Ansari-Cox and directed by Milo Rau. The reading will be followed by a Q&A with Milo Rau, moderated by Frank Hentschker, Executive Director of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Democracy is in crisis, and the public is confused. Elfriede Jelinek responds to Donald Trump’s second election victory with a powerful new text: Endsieg: The Second Coming—a grim sequel to Am Königsweg / The Burgher King, her play about the U.S. election eight years ago. Jelinek depicts how Trump’s followers view the “new old king” as a divinely chosen redeemer. But the king is not alone. Lurking behind him are political and economic cliques, each vying for his favor—and with one another. Meanwhile, resistance is crumbling: “I say there is nothing more, there is nothing else, the other no longer exists, there is nothing to see, there is only the one left,” declares the blind seer. So what remains, beyond Jelinek’s relentless dissection of our times?
About The Artists
Milo Rau
Milo Rau, born 1977 in Bern, is the artistic director of the Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen) | Free Republic of Vienna. Critics call him the "most influential" (Die Zeit), "most interesting" (De Standaard), "most controversial" (La Repubblica), "most scandalous" (New York Times) or "most ambitious" (The Guardian) artist of our time. The director and author has published over 50 plays, films, books and actions. His theatre productions have been shown at all major international festivals, including the Berlin Theatertreffen, the Festival d'Avignon, the Venice Biennale, the Vienna Festival and the Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels, and have been touring in over 30 countries worldwide. From 2018 to 2024 Milo Rau was Artistic Director of NTGent (Belgium). Photo Credit: Marc Driessen
Elfriede Jelinek
The Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek received the 2004 Nobel Prize for Literature and many other prestigious literary and theatre awards. She is best known in the US from Michael Haneke’s film The Piano Teacher based on her novel Die Klavierspielerin. Since the Nobel award she has written only one novel, but many plays addressing urgent issues of our times. Her themes include the politics of memory and guilt (Rechnitz); the 2008 global financial crisis, (Die Kontrakte des Kaufmanns); the rapidly escalating European refugee crisis (Die Schutzbefohlenen); the 2015 Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris (Wut); her immediate response to Donald Trump’s first election (Auf dem Königsweg), followed now by Endsieg, which she wrote within two weeks of the election. Jelinek is one of the most produced living authors/playwrights in the German language world. Her plays are presented by all the major theatre companies often staged by leading innovative directors. These productions have been invited to countless prestigious international festivals and received numerous awards. Her plays have also been produced across Europe, in Japan, India, Australia, and China. In the US the only fully professional staging was the 2013 New York Woman’s Project Theatre’s production of Jackie, directed by Tea Alagic. It was nominated for two Lucille Lortel awards, for outstanding solo show and outstanding sound design. Most recently, her opus magnum, the epic horror novel Die Kinder der Toten (The Children of the Dead) about the undead victims and perpetrators of the Holocaust was published in the US in Gitta Honegger’s translation in March 2024 by Yale University Press, twenty-nine years after its first German publication. As of now, it has been (very perceptively) reviewed in the mainstream press by The Washington Post and The Nation. Photo Credit: Claudia Müller
Gitta Honegger
Gitta Honegger is the longtime translator of Elfriede Jelinek. Her translations of Jelinek’s performance texts include: Sun; Shadow: Eurydice Says (both Performing Arts Journal); Rechnitz (The Avenging Angel); the Merchant’s Contracts- A Comedy of Economics; Charges (The Supplicants); Fury; On the Royal Road: The Burgher King; (all Seagull Books/U. of Chicago Press); the “Princess Plays” Jackie, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty (Theater); Air, Ashes, Full Disclosure (forthcoming at Rowohlt Theaterverlag), Winterreise (in process). Most recently, her translation of Jelinek’s opus magnum, the 666-page novel The Children of the Dead was published by Yale University Press in 2024. She also translated plays by Thomas Bernhard, Elias Canetti, Marie Luise Fleisser and others. Her cultural biography Thomas Bernhard: The Making of an Austrian (Yalu U. Press) was also published in her translation into German, Thomas Bernhard: Was ist das für ein Narr by Propyläen Verlag. Dr. Honegger was a professor of dramaturgy and dramatic criticism at the Yale School of Drama and resident dramaturg at the Yale Repertory Theatre, where she also directed. She lives in Santa Fe and Berlin. Photo Credit. Manfred Laubichler
Nicole Ansari-Cox
Nicole Ansari Cox is an award winning actor, director, writer and producer. Nicole’s career spans many different cultures and languages in Europe and North America, working with directors such as Stephen Soderbergh in Side effects to Trevor Nunn in the Westend and on Broadway as well as being in the company of the famed Thèâtre du Soleil under the direction of Ariane Mnouchkine. Most recently she starred alongside her husband Brian Cox in the West end hit “the Score” and wrapped the US Biopic “ Winds of Change” , The UK movie “Your Fault” , “ Hotel Tehran” ( with Liam Neeson) , “Under the stars” ( with Tony Colette and Andy Garcia) and “Glenrothan”, directed by Brian Cox, which opens later this month at the International Theatre festival in Toronto and for which she also directed second unit and acted as an Executive Producer. She is about to start filming with Samuel L Jackson and Eva Greene for the movie “Just Play dead.” Photo Credit: RJ Lewis