ABOUT PERFORMANCE
Based on a novel by Franz Kafka
In just one morning the life of successful bank employee Josef K. becomes hellish, yet without anything really changing. One impromptu meeting triggers an invisible mechanism and suddenly the whole world for Josef is filled with paradoxes. From this point onwards he is the Trial’s protagonist. Nobody obstructs his way, but he can’t feel himself free anymore. Nobody wishes him evil, but everywhere he feels threatened. His most trivial daily routines have become precarious adventures, full of potential danger. And above all – whilst every minute he gets to know more and more, he understands less and less.
As Red Torch Theatre, Novosibirsk, director Timofey Kuliabin has staged the seminal 20th century plot, whose author guessed and described not only catastrophes of the new era, but the archetype man of that era. The Kafkaesque man is at the heart of the show. And it turns out that in the current environment he looks even more natural than a hundred years ago; as if the writer created his character to ‘grow into’ the role, granting him the capacity to evolve through the decades ahead.
The theatre itself is charged once again with finding an answer to what kind of world it is that the Kafkaesque man inhabits. Whilst numerous versions of The Trial traditionally present Kafka’s world as one of absurdity and grotesque, Red Torch’s production explores Kafka’s inner logic, whilst its main character too busily pursues the logic of the outside world and its laws…all in vain.
The premiere is scheduled for 24 September 2016
Duration 2 hours 30 min.
18+