KAFKA'S DICK. To 6 July.
KAFKA'S DICK
by Alan Bennett
Salisbury Playhouse To 6 July 2002
Runs 2 hr One interval
TICKETS: 01722 320333
Review Hazel Brown 18 June
A fantasy that is surreal and suitably - if bafflingly - KafkaesqueAlan Bennett has constructed a surreal comic play around Kafka's instruction to his friend Brod to burn all his writings when he died. As Brod did not carry out his friend's wishes after Kafka's death in 1924, this play is Bennett's unique take on how the two might react if they were to meet after death.
Opening in 1919, the tubercular and hypochondriac Kafka, played with cadaverous humour by Gregory Fox-Murphy, tries to persuade his friend, Brod, given a lively, poppinjay performance by Julian Littman, that all his writings should be destroyed.
The action then moves to present day Leeds, where Sydney, an insurance clerk like Kafka himself, is writing an article on his idol for an insurance periodical. Linda, Sydney's wife, bored by a dull married life governed by routine and trying to look after a senile father, longs for change of some kind. Bennett understands women's psyche well and Susan Tordoff embraces every comic nuance of her part with a delightful slow smile. Their quiet domesticity is turned upside down when the dead Brod, Kafka and finally Kafka's overbearing father walk into their lives.
The play examines the nature of fame and notoriety, the effect historians, particularly literary historians, have in shaping the past. The surreal atmosphere is heightened by the use of some of Magritte's most famous images as part of the décor and furnishings. By the time we get to the last scene in heaven, we are ready to agree with Kafka's laconic last remark that, "If this is heaven, it's going to be hell!"
While the performances are all good, and there are some moments of high comedy, the play itself left me feeling that I had experienced a comic working out of a private obsession.
Kafka: Gregory Fox-Murphy
Brod; Julian Littman
Linda: Susan Tordoff
Father: Ken Ratcliffe
Sydney: Michael Hadley
Hermann K: Colin Prockter
Director: Jacob Murray
Designer: David Millard
Lighting: Peter Hunter
Sound: Diane Prentice
Dialect Coach: William Conica
2002-06-21 08:27:47