This time everything would be radically different. Watched by his guards, he arrived at the theatre to find a crowd excitedly milling around. To get to the auditorium people were led down long corridors and admitted through keyhole-shaped doors. Once inside, Michael B was seated on a judicial bench and at first astonished by what he saw. As his guards had promised, this looked like no other version of The Trial. Only the names of the people had been changed.
Michael B was intrigued and puzzled: everything seemed familiar but, at the same time, oddly unreal. Rory Kinnear was brilliant as Josef K. Kinnear was never off stage and mesmerisingly showed a man reduced to desperation as he tried to find out why he had been arrested and with what crime he was charged. The Trial: A difficult read as it took me awhile to get used to all the different voices and direct speech while some of the parts jump over each other and are not really necessary.
One of the more dense adaptations of Kafka. Metamorphosis: To me, this is Kafka's finest work. Expressing the sorrows of his personal life and other lives around him at the time he was writing, his story of a boy that randomly turns into a beetle is easy t For this book I'm going to do individual reviews for each play. Expressing the sorrows of his personal life and other lives around him at the time he was writing, his story of a boy that randomly turns into a beetle is easy to relate to metaphorically obviously and to put onstage.
The Penal Colony: A short near duologue, save for two sentences by the guard at the end, about an Officer trying to impress an Explorer with a torture machine and persuade him to keep it. Although nothing much happens there is some great dialogue to keep you interested and it is the shortest out of the three plays. I finished reminded of Waiting For Godot slightly, if it was set in Germany and they were discussing torture methods, morals and politics.
Would be very interesting to see performed. To conclude Berkoff does well with his adaptations of Kafka's work, using his own style of theatre and direction to bring the stories to the stage. Mar 18, Luke Parr rated it it was amazing. I actually managed to be in a production of The Trial and it was brilliant!
I played Narrator, Guard 2 and Huld. I love Berkoffs work there are so many ways to explore it! Jan 01, Roberta rated it liked it Shelves: , books-i-own.
Berkoff presents his own unique in depth interpretation of the books for stage production, which don't detract from the original but add more substance. Also interesting to read Berkoff's comments on each piece. Jun 22, Lottie rated it really liked it. I like this book, The Trial is my favourite of the three. Down a star because Metamorphosis is my stimulus for A Level Theatre Studies devised and its a wind up. Jul 25, Caitlin Baker rated it it was amazing. Berkoff gets it man.
I find theatrical adaptions tend to get a bit on the nose, and this is no different, but somehow with Metamorphosis it works in just the right way. Maybe it's the actor in me, but this is just that bit better than the book. Mar 12, Chloe rated it really liked it.
Review to appear shortly. Feb 21, Courtney Bassett rated it it was ok. Kafka is, of course, fantastic but these adaptations Apr 02, Malcolm rated it really liked it. Berkoff takes Kafka and adapts it to the stage. The three pieces presented here are wildly different in staging and Berkoff clearly had a flair for mounting productions in different ways. He also picked the three most visceral Kafka works for this volume so there is a lot to dissect.
The Trial is the story that, more than anything else, gives us the term 'Kafkaesque. The script utilizes a greek chorus in a way that I don't think is entirely successful but does allow for the show to move locations quickly with characters coming in and out of the chorus.
The play does change the ending of the script but envisioning the ending as written here is powerful. The company slowly tightens a rope that has been run around the play space until it become a noose around Joseph K's neck.
Metamorphosis is probably Kafka's most famous work even being lampooned in a single line of Mel Brooks's The Producers. Gregor Samsa awakens one morning to find he has been transformed into a gigantic insect.
The play uses a lot of movement work to suggest the transformation but Gregor does not have an absurd costume nor does it resort to a puppet. Gregor is still human in his mind and has a wide range of emotions that the dramatic format allows to be on full display.
We also get a lot of insight into his sister, the only one who stays loyal to him until, at last, she bitterly breaks away.
The show uses a lot of metaphor and the suggested staging is of a set that is an abstract sculpture of a beetle. I think this works better than The Trial and having Gregor's thoughts vocalized could be very effective and the way that it handles Gregor's transformation has the potential to elicit pity even if the premise seems laughable.
The final piece is a short version of In The Penal Colony. Another piece about a broken justice system. The bulk of the story is of a penal colony officer gleefully explaining the workings of a gruesome execution machine before being rebuffed by a visitor and then putting himself through the machine.
The acting is universally excellent, and the kinetic choreography extremely slick. The play makes a virtue of its somewhat cramped setting in the Burton-Taylor to heighten the feeling of claustrophobia. Often K is surrounded on three sides by the cast, with the closeness of the audience completing the imprisonment. Again, the necessarily minimalist if worryingly flimsy set is designed and used effectively to parallel the disorientation and distortion that K suffers.
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