About the work
“Am Ziel” (literally “At the Goal”) is a play by the Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard, published in 1981. It premiered on 18 August 1981 at the Salzburg Festival, directed by Claus Peymann with Marianne Hoppe as the Mother, alongside Kirsten Dene and Branko Samarovski. The German premiere followed on 22 October 1981 at the Schauspielhaus Bochum, again directed by Peymann.
Plot
An old woman, the widow of a foundry owner, lives with her daughter in a town in the Netherlands; for decades the two have spent every summer in their holiday house by the sea in Katwijk. This year, for the first time, they have invited a young dramatist whose play has just been a success. While the daughter packs the cases, the mother talks incessantly about her marriage, her daughter and the theatre. In the second act, at the holiday house, tension grows as the daughter feels drawn to the guest.
Cultural significance
The Mother, with her sprawling flow of speech, is one of the great female roles in Bernhard's theatre; critics noted that she stands apart from his gallery of monomaniac heroes. Interpretations read the mother as the past, the daughter as the future and the writer as hollow success. The play is still performed regularly, in Vienna for example at the Theater in der Josefstadt (2015) and at the Burgtheater (2022).