Kafka V Kafka

This four-hander by Howard Colyer is an adaptation of his own translation of a letter that Franz Kafka wrote to his father.

Set in Kafka’s imagination, the letter is dramatised through a dialogue between himself and his father Hermann, punctuated by contributions from his mother, Julie, and favourite sister, Ottla. It’s broken up by surreal physical re-enactments amidst a Magritte-inspired set of clouds, dirt, furniture, and the odd fruit.

Originally conceived as a monologue, Colyer struggles to pull off the admittedly difficult task of dramatising the letter. Direct quotes are clumsily combined with references to Kafka’s works and trite riposte from the father.

While Jack Wilkie’s self-conscious, nervous and stuttering Franz Kafka sets an ample stage for Gareth Pilkington’s Hermann, Pilkington still falls way short of the self-assured and scary counterpoint we expect and doesn’t provide an engaging alternative. However, Ivy Corbin is an outstanding Ottla, whose talents peek through the script’s rather pedestrian narrative veil, which concludes with an epilogue amounting to the writer’s confession of failure.

All the same, if you don’t know much about Kafka, you will probably be glad you saw this. As an intro to his oeuvre, it very much whetted my appetite for more, and also to see more stuff at this venue - a gem of a place.