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Director
/
Producer
Alexander
Holt
Executive
Producer
Katie Plews
Designer
Anna Calligaro
Lighting
Designer
Natalie
Birdsall-Collins
Costume
Designer
Belle Mundi
Choreographer
Alice Birkwood
Production
Manager
Alicia Senior
Stage
Manager
James Barwick
Franz
Kafka
Marc Nielsen
Max
Brod
Edward Gower
Linda
Gailie Morrison
Father
Morris Perry
Sydney
Jonathan
Kemp
Hermann
K
Mike Burnside
Tortoise
Zak Frafnak
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Upstairs
at The Gatehouse
3
- 28 August 2005 |
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If the
Romantics had poetry and the
Victorians had lengthy novels,
future generations may well
associate our age with biography.
With everyone pressed for
time these days, reading 'the
biography' often stands in
stead of reading the biographical
subject's opus. Then, armed
with interesting facts and
a passing knowledge of the
work, the reader of biography
can make small talk on the
subject at a party and, hey
presto, seem cultured. On
the subject of Kafka for example,
one need only mention that
he had a small penis to appear
entertaining and intellectual,
as if to say, "Of course I've
read Kafka's works. I can
talk about those any time.
What is more interesting is
this..."
This is England, after all;
to state that one is an intellectual
is tantamount to admitting
to an embarrassing disease.
Far easier to imply through
an assumed air of authority
that one can make intellectual
conversation, if only one
were bothered, but that upon
the present occasion it is
more adroit to be entertaining.
Because everybody knows (especially
television producers), it
is simply not done to be informative
or intellectual without being
entertaining at the same time.
As Alan Bennett puts it in
his play Kafka's Dick, "Gossip
is the acceptable face of
intellect." Tidbits of information,
like the fact that Kafka had
a small penis, "pass for culture"
in this country.
The central conceit of Kafka's
Dick is that Kafka and his
friend / executor Max Brod,
turn up at the home of a suburban
couple; Sydney, an insurance
salesman and his wife, Linda,
a nurse. It is late twentieth-century
England and Brod and Kafka
are, by rights, dead. Kafka
is unaware that after his
death, Brod did not, as he
had promised, burn all of
Kafka's letters, manuscripts
and published works. As a
result, Kafka now has an invite
to "that posthumous cocktail
party - posterity" as Bennett
phrases it. Brod too has an
invite because he wrote The
biography of Kafka.
Sydney, an amateur Kafka scholar
writing a paper for Small
Print: Journal of Insurance
Studies, is delighted at the
opportunity to quiz his subject
personally, but is stopped
from doing so by Brod who
reasons that if anyone in
the present-day were to appear
interested in Kafka, then
Kafka's works must have remained
to posterity, a fact which
he is of course trying to
hide from Kafka. Just as Brod
and Sydney think they might
have succeeded in keeping
his fame from Kafka, the latter's
father, Hermann, walks in
threatening to tell the world
that his son had a small penis
unless Kafka renounces claims
that his father abused him.
These claims are all that
posterity knows of Hermann
and he wants to clear his
name. Accordingly, Kafka protests
his father's innocence. Knowing
the truth of the matter, the
others put Kafka on trial
(punning on the title of one
of his best known works) in
a scene that is a little laboured
by Bennett.
"Sydney," protests Linda,
"this is persecution." "No
it's not" her husband answers,
"It's biography." It is an
exchange that cleverly points
out the damage done to the
living and the dead by the
intrusive nature of biography
(witness the Hughes family)
and the public craving for
a myth of the artist rejected
in his or her own time (witness
Plath). This message is underlined
a little too heavily by the
use of Linda's father's walking
frame as the box in which
Kafka stands trial. It should
be noted that this is Bennett's
detail rather than a decision
of this particular production.
Despite points like this being
rather laboured, Bennett has
produced an elegant comedy
with a serious message, that
is just as suited to the stage
today as it was when it made
its first appearance at the
Royal Court in 1986. Indeed,
with so much talk in the play
about the turning of names
into adjectives (Kafka-esque,
Proustian) one could say Kafka's
Dick is positively Stoppardian
in its witty conceit, though
it goes one up on Stoppard
by achieving just as much
without the clever-cleverness.
This production, directed
and produced by Alexander
Holt upstairs at Highgate
pub The Gatehouse, is well
worth catching, both for the
wit of Bennett's script and
the charming lack of cynicism
displayed by the actors and
production team alike. Edward
Gower, as Max Brod, gives
the star performance, which
is camped up to the perfect
pitch during the final scene
in Heaven at that "posthumous
cocktail party". The cast
are strong and work together
securely. Moreoever, the design
(Anna Calligaro) is economical
and effective. Every part
of the stage is used naturally
and to great effect. The setting
is simply one room, a sitting
room with two exits, one leading
to the rest of the house and
one to the garden. The decor
has a vague seventies feel
but could be the eighties
or nineties with its bland
grey sofa and lacquered chairs
and coffee-table. Similarly,
the costumes are of a nondescript
period. The style of Jonathan
Kemp's Sydney suggests the
'I Love Lucy' and 'Bewitched'
hubbies of the American fifties,
whereas the blousy style of
Gailie Morrison's Linda suggests
the very early nineties. Every
performance is solid and convincing,
though Marc Nielson as Kafka
is, by definition of his character,
the weak point.
Above all, there is a sense
of enjoyment in the playing
of their parts emanating from
the tightly-knit cast. Whatever
the critical reaction, this
is not a play that will suffer
from the nit-picking seriousness
of the culture industry. Certainly,
the lighting is simplistic
and naive, as is almost everything
about the play, but that is
the point. It is a production
that is all heart, with nothing
to prove, and is therefore
perfectly attuned to Bennett's
message that the inherent
joy of art will always triumph
over the ameliorating nature
of criticism, and that one
can and should delight in
intellectual endeavour without
having to prove its utility.
Laura Keynes |
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