F.X. Kroetz' "Oberösterreich" und S.C. Setz' "Vereinte Nationen" in der Konsumtheorie

Abstract

Oberösterreich [Upper Austria] (1972) by Franz Xavier Kroetz is a play belonging to the genre of new folk art, whose authors aimed at initiating emancipatory processes in society. Essentially, the dramatic art of the 1970s is characterized by a considerable amount of subversion to the existing order. It applies equally to political and social systems, including the emerging consumer society in West Germany at that time. Contemporary German-language dramaturgy, represented in this article by the drama Vereinte Nationen [United Nations] (2017) written by the Austrian writer Clemens J. Setz, explores similar problems in no lesser extent, although the means undertaken to achieve the goal seem to be fundamentally different. Both plays address the topic of child commodification in order to critically sharpen the structures that govern a society based on the assumptions of consumption philosophy. On the basis of the theory of consumption developed by Jean Baudrillard, Zygmunt Bauman, and Norbert Boltz, the author in the present article tries to trace similarities and differences in the approach to the ways of thinking and patterns of behaviour of the consumption-based society.