Kafka V Kafka

Nameless Theatre Company presents: Kafka v Kafka

Based on Franz Kafka's Letter to my Father

Adapted and translated by Howard Colyer

BROCKLEY JACK, Tues 17th January - Sat 4th February 2012

At the age of 36, Franz Kafka was driven to write a letter to the father that he feared, addressing his harsh and authoritarian treatment of his son and the humiliations he inflicted on him. The resulting letter, over 100 pages long, was read by his sister and his mother, but not one word was read by his father.

"Dearest Father, recently you asked me why I maintain that I'm afraid of you. And, as usual, I didn't know how to answer. It was due to my fear of you. And because my fear rests on so many details that I couldn't even have discussed half of it."

Based on playwright Howard Coyler's own critically acclaimed translation of the letter, Letter to My Father, published in 2008, Kafka v Kafka is a moving work about the struggle to communicate. Directed by Leigh Tredger and set in the imagination of Franz Kafka, the play is a retelling of his childhood trials and traumas; as much a self-accusation as an accusation against his father, as much self-examination as cross-examination.

Howard Colyer is a playwright and novelist. His most recent productions include The Overcoat, which had a sell-out run at the Brockley Jack in January 2011, Conference Call, which was selected for LOST Theatre's One Act Play Festival in May, and Homework, which appeared at the Brockley Jack in November.

"Howard Colyer states that he was most concerned to reproduce the raw "venting of feelings" in the letter as well as the extraordinary "momentum of the prose." In both these aims he succeeds... his translation catches the naked energy of the original" New York Sun (on Letter to my Father).

www.brockleyjack.co.uk / Running Time: 75 mins

Company Info

Adapted and translated by: Howard Colyer Directed by: Leigh Tredger

Artistic Director: James Farrell Associate Director: Max Pappenheim

Assistant Director: Anna Nguyen Stage Designer: Moi Tran

Lighting Designer: Anna Sbokou

Cast

Franz Jack Wilkie Hermann Gareth Pilkington Julie Jean Apps Ottla Ivy Corbin

Listings information:

Venue: Brockley Jack
Address: 410 Brockley Road, London, SE4 2DH
Dates: Tues 17th Jan - Sat 4th Feb 2012
Price: £12 (£10 concs.)

Box Office: 0844 847 2454

Transport: Train: Crofton Park Station, Honor Oak Park Station; Bus: 122, 172, 171, P4, N171

Times: Tues-Sat 7.45pm, Saturday matinee 4pm