Franz Kafka's THE TRIAL

proposed by Karola Kreitmair

Table of the Sections:

1. The Novel
1. The Introduction
2. The Synopsis
2. The Adaptation
3. The Production
1. The moment
2. Mis en scene
3. Working with Designers
4. Working with Actors
5. The Rehearsal Process
4. About me
5. About the timing
6. About the venue
7. The Team
8. The Budget
9. The Set

"Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning."
-Kafka: The Trial (first sentence)

The Introduction:

Grinding away at Josef K. is the all-encompassing machinery of the law/courts. Hidden in every attic, in the janitor's closet at work, behind beds and under staircases lies the labyrinthine spider-web of authority, in which the powerful relentlessly crush the weak, seemingly motivated by nothing but pure sadism. This is the world to which Josef K. awakens and which eventually causes his downfall. As much as he attempts to ignore the charges, the kernel of destruction has been planted in his gut and is slowly gnawing away from within. K. tries to navigate this new realm of the law/court with reason, only to discover that the reason employed here is inherently irrational. Far from being anarchic, this dog-eat-dog world is a heavily regulated - utterly impenetrable and painfully absurd. Foreign forces keep creeping into K.'s life, like voices in the mind of a schizophrenic, offering him putative escapes from the rat-race, then gazing at him blankly when he angers at their insufferable behaviour.

K. goes from being a self-confident, successful banker, who enjoys the company of woman now and then and is highly esteemed by his environment, to a nervous, self-destructive shadow of himself, entirely at the mercy of strangers. And yet, in the end, at his end, he does not resist; he complies with his executioners, even facilitates their mission. It is the story of K.'s surrender to the irrational and absurd. In death, K embraces the mockery of life.

This illuminates one of the central themes of the play and the one that I find most fascinating: the existential notion of acceptance.

"Thus there are no accidents in a life; a community event which suddenly bursts forth and involves me in it does not come from the outside. If I am mobilised in a war, this is my war; it is my image and I deserve it."
-Jean-Paul Sartre

In a way, the ordeal that befalls Josef K. is of artificial nature. He is put under arrest, yet he is allowed to continue on with his life as usual. He is not forbidden to work, nor to go wherever he pleases whenever he pleases. Apart from a few brief incidents (and the initial arrest of course), such as the phone call in the office, the law does not actively seek out K. (This is confirmed by the priest, who informs K. that the law does not come to him, but that he goes to the law.) But then what is the cause for the severe agony that K. experiences? Well, some might argue, and I among them, that it is K. himself. K. is the Sartrean paradigm of an agent who determines his identity through the choices he makes. Yet K.'s identity obviously suffers from this trial. Thus K. does not succeed in establishing 'self-determining freedom'.

"[Self-determining freedom] is the idea that I am free when I decide for myself what concerns me, rather than being shaped by external influences. ... Self-determining freedom demands that I break the hold of all such external impositions, and decide for myself alone."
-Charles Taylor

If it seems as though we're being a little harsh on K. here, I concur. Kafka does not portray him as a total loser and I certainly don't view him as that either. With The Trial, Kafka illustrates just what an enormous challenge it is maintain or achieve one's self-determining freedom and in general questions its feasibility. Yet what I find striking, and one reason why I think that Kafka is such a genius, is that K. surrenders in the end, because he doesn't want to seem as though he has lived through a year of trial and yet hadn't learnt anything. It is not from mere exhaustion that he chooses to terminate the trial once and for all. He says:

"...the only thing I can do now is to hold on to my calm reasoning mind. ... Is one to say of me that in the beginning I wanted to end my trial and now, at its end, that I want to start it all over again? ... I am thankful that one has sent these half-mute senseless men with me on my way and that one has left it up to me to tell myself all that is necessary."
-Franz Kafka

The Synopsis:

K.'s helplessness towards the Laundress in the interaction with the student cuts him in his virility. K.'s remaining confidence towards the submissive and idiotically patient accused - arising from his belief that he is a well-esteemed member of society and thus deserves fair treatment - dwindles and slowly the realisation sets in that he is no better than his fellow accused. K.'s despair manifests itself physically in his faintness. His every suffocating breath burns up another of his life's limited moments. To finish him off completely, the reprimand by the father reduces K. to a dependent child, further impoverishing K.'s status.

In the second act, Huld solidifies K.'s dismal outlook at the law/court, portraying it in all its debilitating gravity - creating the image of an apparatus that cannot be trusted to act rationally, yet possesses the power to severely incapacitate its dependents. While Leni seems to throw herself at K. out of sheer sexual attraction, her motives are in fact unclear. She is yet another victim of the law/court, which has succeeded in mangling her understanding of love and affection. Block illustrates the full extent of the baseness of the accused. Huld flaunts Block's inferiority in order to feed his own gluttonous ego, an act which strikes K. as all the more revolting, given that subconsciously he recognizes his own impotence in Block. Finally, Titorelli robs K. of any hopes to obtain an 'acquittal definite'.

The parable "Before the Law" is the essence of K.'s tragedy and illuminates K.'s downfall concisely while remaining mysterious and multi-layered. K.'s story concludes with a definite initiation of K. into the world of the law. He ceases to resist and accepts the logic of the law. K.'s transformation leaves the viewer uneasy and forces her to probe deep into the meaning of the narrative. He dies as a tragic hero, along with all the associated complications. K. no longer represents the innocent victim of an outrageous offence, rather, he has made the trial his own and accepted the rules of this underworld. This, perhaps, makes his death all the more tragic.

"From this sense of pain...he deduces he is alive"
-Steven Berkoff

The Adaptation:

I intend to alter the ending of the Berkoff's piece in order to stay more in keeping with Kafka. My motivation is not merely one of reverence for a Kafka, but rather a belief that K.'s death is absolutely necessary for the conclusion of his journey. I spoke before of 'self-determining freedom'. Especially towards the end (due to the decrease of possible options), it becomes of ever-increasing importance whether K. chooses to accept the trial and 'make it his own' or whether he continues to resist and thus end in 'disgrace'. Now, while he submits himself to the execution, he gets cold feet right before the end. In this sense, he fails in the Sartrean sense. But in Berkoff's version this isn't clear, because he rushes over the end, not even indicating what is happening to K. Regardless of whether you think K. redeems himself or dies shamefully, it is important that he does die. The lines, "I must remain calm and analytical to the end," and "K. knew that it would have been his duty to take the knife, etc." (which are all from the original novel) indicate what decision is at stake. Then, when K. fails to commit the final deed, his dies 'like a dog' and his shame survives him.

In the following proposed ending, which I have adapted from Kafka's novel, I allocate the voice of reason and ideal authentic action to VOICE, while leaving K. with the 'weaker' inclination of wanting to live. I am not judging K., as Sartre would, but I do force him to face the option of 'radical choice'. K.'s failure of acting 'authentically' should instigate consideration of a) whether radical choice is a justified expectation and b) whether it is an attainable expectation.

p. 69

(K. travels through an endless corridor, into the arms of TWO MEN.)

VOICE
I must remain calm and analytical to the end. I always wanted to snatch at life
with twenty hands. Was that wrong? Are they to say at the end of a year's trial
that I want to begin it again? I don't want that to be said...

(THE MEN lay K. down gently. ONE produces a knife. Passes it to the OTHER. The
OTHER takes it, then passes it back. THEY continue passing the knife over K.'s neck.)

VOICE
K. knew that it would have been his duty to take the knife, as it was hovering
over him, and pierce it into himself.

K
The logic is infallible, yet - wait! There must be some arguments in my favour
that have been overlooked. Wait! Where is my Judge? Whom I have never seen. Where
is the highest court, which I have never entered?

(ONE MAN holds K.'s neck down, while the OTHER pierces the knife into K.'s heart
and turns it around.)

VOICE
With breaking eyes, K. saw the two men observing the decision, cheek to cheek.

K
Like a dog.

VOICE
It was as if his shame was to survive him.

THE END

"Drama is action, sir, action and not confounded philosophy"
-Luigi Pirandello

The Moment:

Suddenly the scene shifts to a subway, including all the nerve-wrecking aspects of a New York City subway ride (for example). The light is harsh. K. is pushed around, fat people block his way, the train accelerates and decelerates abruptly, causing him to topple and bump into the other riders. He smells onion on someone's breath. Another person's sweat rubs off onto him. The 4 x 8 frames function as train doors that openly and close randomly at the command of the relentless whistle of the conductor. Also, the frames are manipulated by the chorus, so that they sway back and forth in a sickening fashion, exacerbating K.'s unease. The background murmur of the train inhabitants revolves around K.'s interrogation. The events of his mind become public possession. K. helplessly succumbs to this mind-fuck. Suddenly the Assistant Manager is there too, voicing his indignation at K.'s behaviour. K. is disempowered, caught on a train that mercilessly thrusts in one direction only, delivering K. to his inevitable fate.

Mis en Scene:

Ben Clarendon and Garland McQuinn are designing set and lighting respectively. Ben's design consists of gothic-architecture-inspired arches thrown severely off-centre by the physical manifestation of the insanity of the systems they house, thus creating an expressionistic nightmare vision reminiscent of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. The set is decidedly asymmetrical, a technique which is aimed at evoking a sense of uneasiness in the audience. The angles are all wrong, just as the events in Josef K.'s life are all wrong. Furthermore, the difference in height between the downstage centre area and the raked surfaces that surround him, allow me to place K. in a physical location that will dwarf him in comparison to his environment just as he is dwarfed by the machinery that has taken over his life. The lighting for the production should be harsh and relentless, now immersing K. in an ominous pool of gloom, now abruptly blinding him with the sheer power of his towering adversary.

Berkoff has included ten 'screens' in his script, an element I intend to keep, yet alter slightly. Reducing the number of 'screens' to a more manageable eight and defining screens as essentially thin wooden frames that measure 1 x 2 metres (about 4 x 8 ft), I will use these devices to create a panoply of ingredients of scenery, such as hallways, tunnels, books, picture frames and more. These frames will be of light wood and rest on two feet, so that they can stand on their own yet be easily moved by actors. The co-ordinated swaying of these frames, for example, can convey a sense of see-sickness akin to the general sensation of vertigo that K. experiences.

The chorus is an integral part to the production. It acts both as K.'s inner voice and his pursuer. Thus it is omnipresent, following K. where ever he goes. The chorus also acts as a machine. It takes over the functions of many literal machines and props in the play, such as the telephone or stairs and furniture while also functioning as the oft maniacal crowds that K. must tackle. To use a completely overused expression, the chorus becomes 'greater than the sum of its parts'. At times it represents the inhuman force of a processing machine, driving the pulse of the play along without consideration for those who have to exist within it. By having the chorus on stage at all times, K. will not be able to escape his torment. He is given no respite from his suffering, both external and internal, and so his degeneration takes on a frightening speed.

In practical terms: The chorus is made up of the characters that are not K. and are currently not otherwise involved. That means that when not actively portraying guards for example, the 'guards' recede into the chorus. This happens for two reasons, a) it would make no sense to cast people purely as 'chorus' and others purely as 'guards' while the two parts can clearly overlap. If I were to not double-allocate actors in this way, I would have to cast close to 33 actors, which I find excessive. I like to concentrate on fewer actors. And b) by including characters in the chorus that also occupy more defined roles, the chorus gains in menacing power, because it represents specific characters from K.'s subconscious. In other words, it isn't merely a group of anonymous figures haunting K.'s mind, but rather his landlady, the inspector, the assistant manager, Miss BŸrstner and further characters which the audience-member has met and to whom she can thus assign meaning. My costume designer (Ollie) and I agree that there should be no separate 'chorus costumes' for the actors to change into when they are not being guards or any given other character.

However, simultaneously, the chorus does represent a unified mass. But not in the sense that the classical choruses did, rather in the sense that the characters in this piece amalgamate into an indefinable oneness. Everything that is not K., in this play, is 'the other'. That includes all the characters, the machinery of the law/court, the street and the realm of K.'s mind.

The chorus will essentially be forceful and unforgiving. This is necessary to convey the sense of ruthlessness of the world in which K. finds himself. Since there will be no incidental scenery on the stage, except for the eight frames, it is the chorus' responsibility to create the environment. Generally, the chorus will find itself on the raised surface of the set, with K. on the floor-level plane. This will invoke the chorus' heightened authority over K. The chorus will be, an at times wacky, at times ominous presence that physically and metaphorically traps Josef K. (I.e. it actually composes the parameters of K.'s extent of motion.)

Apart from some pivotal roles, such as K. and Leni, I will cast gender neutrally. That means, for instance, Huld or Titorelli might be women. Although this is not strictly in keeping with Kafka's novel, I a) see no reason to not do so, and b) see reason to positively do so. The Trial is not a story of gender struggle and so the gender allocation of parts is not integral to portraying the profundity of the play. Furthermore, Kafka wrote this novel a hundred years ago, when gender roles where more strictly circumscribed and I find it only fitting to our day and age to let go of those roles and open the entire wealth of characters in this play to both sexes. I am often admonished by people who read my plays or see my productions that I am not feministic enough, that I do not deserve the label of a woman playwright, largely because I do not focus on the struggle of women in my pieces and because I cast men in central parts. That is because I don't view my characters primarily as women or men, but as a complex persona with gender-transcending issues. I am not a feminist or feminist playwright, and while I do admire the fervour of these (mostly) women, I attempt to take theatre a step further, into a realm where sex becomes less of an issue. Thus I don't want to restrict myself to doing only plays for, with and about women, but rather delve into the (admittedly much larger) pool of male dominated plays and strip them of their male predominance. I am not doing this, however, as part of a feminist agenda, but rather to release the play from some artificially imposed parameters that arose as manifestations of a Zeitgeist prevalent during their inception.

Now, about 're-inventing' the play - I am proposing The Trial, because I believe it addresses one of the essential questions of humanity, (I'm allowed to use weighty words like that - I'm a philosophy major) namely the question: "How do I deal with an environment that it inherently inhospitable to me?" I don't want to mess around with the script simply in order to flex my directorial or creative muscles. I will have enough of a challenge as it is. That means, I don't intend to 'jazz things up' simply for the sake of 'jazzing things up'. I do plan on altering the ending, as I have mentioned above, but that's not simply because I feel cocky, but because I feel that the ending needs to remain the way Kafka wrote it, in order for the play to retain its full meaning.

I want to create an experience that will leave the viewer shuddering with uneasiness. I want a production that is oppressive and anxiety provoking. Basically, I want people to leave the theatre dialling their mom's number on their cell-phones because they feel small and helpless in the world. This is not (entirely) because I'm a misanthrope or sadist, but because I feel the need to convey a reality to my audience that often goes ignored in our oh-so-comfortable lives. The story of Josef K., as absurd as it might initially seem, is composed of true elements of human life. There is a dark side in all of us that sits right at the bottom of our souls and as much as we occupy ourselves with fun and games, it does not go away. Pain and suffering are integral components to what it means to live. And ignoring them is pointless. Rather we should allow them to surface and look our demons in the eye. It would only make us stronger.

I view The Trial as a modern version of the Ancient Greek Tragedy, in which, so Aristotle, fear and pity were induced in the audience so that they might overcome them in a cathartic victory. In a society whose attention drifts farther and farther into the realm of mind-negating distraction, an event that shakes us all up is overdue.

The reason why I'm saying all this is that I think the play as written does a pretty good shaking job and it would be pure arrogance to tinker with a functioning piece of writing. That being said, translating something from the page into the space inevitably leads to interpretations that might not be in keeping with Kafka's or Berkoff's visions. I don't care. Kafka and Berkoff have handed over the story/play and it is now entirely in our hands. It will now be filtered through our conscious and unconscious choices, which themselves depend upon a multitude of factors in our own lives.

I have read a number of reviews of productions of this Trial adaptation and was surprised to read that one of the reviewers thought a particular production to be "wonderfully funny and absurd". I certainly see the humour in this piece and I will work my hardest to allow it to surface (humour, after all, is one of the best means of communication), but try as I might, nothing about this humour is "wonderful".

Take p. 34 for example, the bailiff complains that they keep carrying his wife off, even on Sunday, which is his day off. They send him on pointless errands, "but they never send me too far, just to give me a little hope of getting back in time". That explanation, paired with a huffing and puffing bailiff, who enters the stage mid-sprint, is funny. And it'll be funny in my production too. But funny in a twisted sort of way.

The Designers:

I want to make sure everyone working on this show is as comfortable and stress-free as possible. (Entirely stress-free, as we all know, would be a utopia.) Therefore, I will make sure that the designers and directors of the show have as much help as they need. I am in contact with a number of new Brown students who have expressed their willingness in provide assistance. Also, I'll do whatever is in my power to make sure things get completed and people are happy. I've already fulfilled all my requirements for my concentration. I can flunk this semester.

The Actors:

I confess that this sounds rather methody and it's true - I did go to the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in New York City, which many consider the Mecca of Method Acting, but I'm not completely corrupted. Instead of absorbing what I was feed at the LSTI lock, stock and barrel, I learnt that what really matters is to determine what works for you. There is no all-encompassing technique which can scientifically be prescribed to all actors playing Hamlet (or Josef K. for that matter). However, whatever you find to motivate you and let you throw yourself into the world of the play needs to come from something that matters to you. Whether this occur along the internal lines of raising affective memories from your 7th grade trauma or along more external approaches of assuming a character's paradigmatic movements and allowing these to guide your behaviour is essentially irrelevant - as long as it works.

Of course, this requires the actor to know how to get her juices flowing. What happens when you have to direct someone who isn't all that experienced and who simply can't get to the place you'd like her to be? Well, in this case my method training does show itself a little. Beyond the simple attempts of bringing the world of the play closer to the actor, either by discussing what is going on with her or by leading her through a play-inspired spin-off scene concerning her character and working on establishing an objective for the character in a given scene, I find the following 'tricks' to be useful:

• Substitution
• Place Work
• Song
• Personal Object

Place Work: In doing place work, one (once again mentally) places oneself into a location which evokes certain responses in one and then 'explores' this place within the parameters of the stage. This tends to work more successfully for places from one's past although some people are very apt at using imaginary locations such as cells or boats surrounded by water (which sometimes arise from dreams).

Song: While I find this exercise distracting, others swear by it. It basically consists of internalising a song - preferably one with powerful connotations to you - in order to evoke the feelings connected with that song at you will.

Personal Object: This is getting really methody, but doing a personal object can be a powerful technique. Either before a scene or even during, the actor 'creates' an object that is meaningful to her. She can then 'touch' it, 'smell' it and just generally feel its presence. Popular examples include a lost loved one's urn of ashes or more banal items such as one's mother's scarf or even one's own of baby tooth.

You might think that these acting deliberations are unnecessary for a play like The Trial, but I differ. As I've already pointed out, K., Leni, Block, Titorelli, even the guards and the priest - they all possess multi-faceted and complicated psychologies and I intend to exploit them to the fullest.

Please don't be insulted by the putative assumption of the above section that might make it appear as though I were attempting to lecture you on the techniques of acting. That's not at all what this is about. I just want to demonstrate that I can deal with acting problems and while I'm at it, illustrate how I do so. Acting always causes difficulties and it sure sucks if, as a director, you're not prepared.

The Rehearsal Process:

Oct. 2			Proposal Deadline
Oct. 5			Interview + Project Decision
Oct. 7			Staff Meeting
Oct. 7,8		Auditions
Oct. 9			Call-backs
Oct. 10			Script Distribution
Oct. 11-13		Long Weekend

Oct. 14			Read through
Oct. 15, 16		Background work and trust-building exercises, character exploration
Oct. 17, 19		Sketch out and block Act I

Oct. 20			Sketch out and block Act II + 'No Returns' Strike
Oct. 21			Rehearsal (work with individuals)
Oct. 22			Rehearsal (work with individuals)
Oct. 23			Act One Run Through
Oct. 24			Act Two Run Through
Oct. 26			Run

Oct. 27 - 28		Rehearsal
Oct. 29			Design Run
Oct. 30			Chorus Work
Oct. 31			Problem Fixing
Nov. 1			One on one work
Nov. 2			Run

Nov. 3			Work Act I
Nov. 4			Work Act II
Nov. 5			Design Run
Nov. 6			Problem Fixing
Nov. 7			Dark Day
Nov. 8			Dry Tech
Nov. 9			Wet Tech

Nov. 10			Tech Run
Nov. 11			Dress Rehearsal
Nov. 12			Dress Rehearsal
Nov. 13			Invited Dress
Nov. 14 - 17		Performance

The only way I can write is like that; I guess the world is absurd.
-Karola Kreitmair

The Director:

As some of you might remember, I actually proposed a show last year: Big Love, by Chuck Mee. A fair question therefore is, what have I learnt since then? Well, let me tell you the truth. I wasn't at all sure about Big Love. It's a great play, but not really up my alley. You may recall my hesitancy when I came to the interview to defend my proposal. That's because I don't think I was really comfortable with doing Big Love. I, in fact, was relived to not have been passed. I owe you (I've already given it to the people who were on my proposal then) an apology for having wasted your time with a half-assed attempt of a show.

With The Trial, however, things couldn't be more different. It's no exaggeration to say that I love both Kafka and Berkoff and when I found this adaptation in the Rock, it was like my birthday and Christmas at the same time. I have lived, breathed and slept The Trial for the past weeks. I re-read the novel and analysed the play. I talked to Prof. Rehberg in the German department. I actually re-read Sartre's Existentialism and Human Emotions and parts of his Being and Nothingness, in order to get a grip on exactly what is going on with K. There are few things I feel entirely certain about in this world, but I know I want to do this play. So, in answer to the question of what I've learnt since last time, all I can say is that I've learnt that you really want to have to do it. Putting on a show is way too much hard work if it's something you're not absolutely dying to do.

Kafka was a German-speaking Jew in Prague, hated by the Jews for speaking German, by the Germans for being a Jew, and by the Czechs for both. In other words, he didn't belong. In Germany, where I'm from, I'm an outsider, having left at sixteen and here, well, I suck at 'Celebrity' because I don't know any of the references that are older than four years. And yeah, I don't really belong either. This is going to sound like I'm suffering from severe delusions of grandeur, but I've always felt a certain connection to Kafka, beyond merely being attracted to his incredible writing. I've read pretty much every words of his that has survived and am fascinated by his warped relationship to the world. It makes me feel as though I might not be so crazy after all. Being able to read his work in its original language, I imagine that I'm receiving a purer taste of his twisted tales than someone reading the translation. I derive a certain comfort from his stories. In reading Kafka, I come to understand something about my innermost self. And in some inexplicable way, that connects me to the world. I need that.

"Uncivil liberties: Detainee twists in Kafkaesque limbo"
-Steven Stycos

The Timing:

The court/law enters into Josef K.'s bedroom-an act which strikes us as outrageous - but isn't it the case that the Secret Service in this country has similar insights into our private e-mail or telephone correspondence? As an international student, my information was recently fed into a government anti-terrorist database, so that my identity and track record could be examined at my every move. Josef K. is surprised at how many people now about his trial. Well, I wouldn't be surprised if the CIA knew about my getting caught shoplifting a chapstick in a remote Bavarian town when I was fourteen. Our lives are transparent and may be interfered with at any moment, with our without justification. The arbitrariness of such actions becomes clear when you consider the Brown students who have not been granted permission to re-enter the country in order to continue their studies. The Trial seems to me an extremely pertinent play to put on now in the light of the self-proclaimed emergency status in which we currently find ourselves.

A further factor which may not be as temporally specific, yet resonates with our world nonetheless, is the power possessed by the inanimate machinery of bureaucracy. Honest ambitions are thwarted every day out of a lack of the 'necessary' paperwork. We are governed by an immobile monster of paper and signatures making it clear that Kafka's turn-of-the-(last)-century horror visions of an artificial corrupt hierarchy are no mere fantasy. When approvals and connections become all-important, humanity is left by the way-side.

While I think The Trial is well suited for this particular time, I have to confess I consider it well suited for any time. K.'s struggle is one that springs from the very nature of humankind. Josef K. finds himself in an inhospitable situation which is not self-made and he has to deal with it while retaining his humanness. As I have argued above, he potentially does so only in the very end, at which point many will argue it is too late. This is a battle that goes as far back as Ancient Greek Tragedy. Oedipus, to name a prominent example, is really screwed over by fate, a circumstance which is arguably not his fault. Yet he has to take on responsibility and come to terms with the misfortunes of his life. As does Josef K. As does every other person in the world. Life is not all roses. In fact, for most people it is pretty much all thorns. Yet justice or fairness is simply not something we can demand. There is no divine supervisor who makes sure that everyone receives their equal share of fairness. Life is a continual fight and in many cases against forces that are far more irrational and incomprehensible than the law in Josef K.'s case. After all, children are born HIV positive in Africa for no apparent purpose whatsoever. And still they have to deal - or rather their mothers, given that the children usually die before they reach a stage of consciousness in which they can grasp their malaise. I don't mean to reduce Kafka's masterpiece to a generic tale of ill-fate. I do want to point out however, that K.'s suffering has far-reaching application.

"If the book that we are reading does not wake us with a blow on the head, why then are we reading the book?"
-Franz Kafka

The Venue:

"When a hundred men stand together, each of them loses his mind and gets another one"
-Friedrich Nietzsche

The Team:

Stage Manager: Jannine Miguez
Set Design: Ben Clarendon
Lighting Design: Garland McQuinn
Costume Design: Olivia Rasini
Sound Design: Joseph Posner
Technical Director: Alex Ysari-Syraski
Production Manager: Dade Veron

"You can keep your Marxist ways / For it's only just a phase / For it's money makes the world go round"
-Monty Python (Money Song)

The Budget:

Rights: probably $0 (negotiations pending)
Set (including frames): $380
Publicity and Copying: $70
Costumes: $150
Total: $600