It’s no particular wonder the dramatic work of Austrian Nobel Prize winner, Elfriede Jelinek, seldom finds its way to British theatres. By the author’s own admission, her work is far too removed from the UK love of ‘well-made plays’ to gauge any relevant interest. That, combined with the fact her lengthy, monologue prone texts do nothing short of demanding a clear, strict and overpowering directing vision, has contributed to an almost complete lack of Jelinek in the UK – the last professional production dating back to 1996.

Just a Must’s staging of Sports Play is therefore no small feat. The company has managed to gather support from both Arts Council and Austrian Cultural Forum London and produce a translation of the text into English, and a performance that went on a small tour around the UK, culminating in a six day run at Chelsea Theatre. Their willingness to embark on this project, and success in making it much more than a one-off production is undoubtedly culturally significant; the show’s perfect timing (it coincides with the Olympics) and the very existence of a published translation are, regardless of the quality of the actual performance, a huge step forward in recognising one of Europe’s leading post-dramatic playwrights.

With the original stretching to 120 (fascinating) pages, that contain no classic plot or characters, Sports Play can be directed in an endless number of ways; one thing it does require is a clear concept. Jelinek’s style allows a reader to muse over the complex structure and her love for linguistic games, but for a director it poses a challenge of translating all the nuances, and mile long thoughts into a semiology that’s comprehensible in real time. The UK premiere of Sports Play, directed by Vanda Butkovic, unfortunately offers a weak, un-palpable concept, suffering instead from trying too often to conform the Austrian text to the British tradition, whilst struggling to find a theatrical language to complement the post-dramatic style.  The problems, unsurprisingly, quickly start to creep up.

The performance text, cut down to two hours seemingly out of pure necessity, maintains its contained, basic idea of sport as a peace time’s war – an activity that transforms masses into enemies, leaves mothers childless (after they have lost their sons to sport) and imposes strict and damaging images of a perfect body. Where the play is very blatantly political, however, evoking strong images of fascism and a football match gone wrong that practically announced the beginning of the Yugoslavian war (to mention but two examples), the performance is politically lukewarm at best – an effect it achieves mostly by mentioning war criminals. There is little in the way the play is directed to suggest the strong political thoughts from the text; instead the stage is occupied by 140 kilos of fluff which, although multi-practical, never really reveals its basic symbolism, and a cast dressed in sports gear who with their stage presence leave an impression of a parody rather than a malicious and dangerous group. There’s still undoubtedly a lot of political content in the text that splurges onto the stage, but its delivery manages to wash it over. The cast juggles attempting to battle the long monologues by treating them as not much more than an exercise in rhythm, and forcing them to fit into an Alan Bennett shaped mould. The former approach, that at the very beginning of the play results in an over-stretched chorus scene, leaves the meaning lost on everyone, whilst missing on the development of an imposing atmosphere out of potentially ominous tempo and sheer noise; the latter unsuccessfully turns a speech on the politics of body image into a mundane marital squabble in front of the TV, managing along the way to make the text sound pretentious and quasi intellectual.

Occasionally, when Jelinek’s words are complimented with a thought out physical action, or devised imagery, a scene works and pushes the piece in a whole different direction: in mashing an aerobics routine with a  monologue on why women should embrace their bodies as an advantage in the men’s world, Nina Hatchwell finds a suitable shape for Jelinek’s seemingly untheatrical words, while Giorgio Spiegelfeld’s  depiction of a bodybuilder, who in idolising Arnold Schwarzenegger managed only to get himself to the grave, his body ridden with tumours, is tragic, yet brilliantly camp and full of Jelinek’s specific, cerebral appreciation of pop culture. These small successes are quickly forgotten as Sports Play returns to what seems the basic idea here: showing the text the respect it deserves by letting it speak for itself. Ironically, that approach is a fight against Jelinek, who in delivering texts that can’t sustain themselves on stage without a full range of versatile theatrical means, is an ultimate playwright – waiting for her work to achieve its full authenticity with a director’s creativity.

With no overbearing concept this performance is only a sum of its parts – a lot of dragged out speeches that are much livelier on paper and a feeling that the cast and the creative team could not quite detach themselves from the dramatic tradition. Somewhere in there are glimpses of genuinely intriguing ideas and solutions: Jelinek’s dramatic alter ego Elfi Elektra never leaves the stage, lurking instead on the edges of the space as if to oversee the proceedings; the chorus is ironically left promoting Stiegl, the Austrian beer brand that supported  the show, and every once in a while (to adhere to playwright’s suggestion and it seems to the annoyance of some of the cast members), an angel-like figure appears to deliver the latest Team GB results. Still, for the most part, Sports Play does not find a constructive way to prove this post-dramatic play is indeed meant for stage, losing instead the battle with the enormity and complexity of the text.