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Kafka's
Dick As surreal as anything the man himself produced, Alan Bennett's humorous take on the life and legacy of Franz Kafka is an exploration of fame, and the ownership of intellect, with the occasional something unexpected done with avocados. In a normal suburban household, Sydney, a Kafka-obsessed insurance man (the excellent Bill Moulford), and his long-suffering wife Linda (Annie Bayliss), find themselves suddenly visited by Max Brod (Joe Kenneway), the should-have-been-long-dead best friend of Kafka. Brod has unfortunately urinated on the couple's tortoise, and whilst rinsing him off, Linda's whim to kiss the hapless animal prompts a metamorphosis (ah, the irony), from tortoise to "leading figure of European literature" (Josh Howard-Saunders, as Kafka). Matters are complicated further by the repeated appearances of Sydney's father (played with suberb comedy and pathos by Don Fathers), who is convinced that the increasing number of black-coated men are in fact from the health authority, and about to have him put in a home ("one puts the cat out when it's a nuisance, why not parents?"). With the appearance of Kafka's tyrannical father (Paul Harvey), the die is well and truly cast. Kafka,
you see, as his dying wish, asked Brod to burn his works. Had he complied,
the name Kafka would have been less than a footnote - the faceless
nobody of the incinerated Trial. Yet Brod did not burn his works,
instead subsequently publishing everything: books, letters, the lot.
When Kafka returns, he has no idea of his subsequent fame, and the
ensuing revelations provoke serious questions concerning the ownership
of thought, and the apparently perverse and contradictory desire of
Kafka to be a nobody. Instead, Kafka is a household name: as Brod
says, "he's an adjective in Japanese, why should he kiss you?"
The play takes increasingly surreal turns as 'K' is put on trial,
and fame itself becomes the object of analysis. One thing to note:
when they say "it is not the end", they really aren't joking. Rebecca
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