Kafka and Son

EdinburghGuide ★★★★★

alon — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 20:32:27 +0000

Kafka and Son Review

By Alex Eades - Posted on 26 August 2011

Company: Richard Jordan Productions Ltd, Theaturtle and Threshold Theatre in association with Assembly

Running time: 65mins

Production: Mark Cassidy (Director), Marysia Bucholc & Camelia Koo (Set Design), Andrea Lundy (Lighting Design), Darren Copeland (Sound Design), Barbara Singer (Costume Design), Cam Davis (Production Stage Manager)

Performers: Alon Nashman (Franz Kafka/Hermann Kafka)

“Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate… but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins”.
- Franz Kafka

Ah, Kafka. Poster boy for the alienated, tortured artist. Dying from apparent starvation shortly before his 41st birthday (he had long suffered from Tuberculosis and, it has been suggested, a schizoid personality disorder), his only success coming too late, with most of his works, much unfinished, published to mass acclaim after his death.

There was much sadness in his short life, but little affected him more than his troubled relationship with his overbearing father. This was expressed in a forty five page typewritten letter in an attempt to build a bridge between them. He gave this to his mother to hand over, but she never delivered it, instead sending it directly back to her son, who then handwrote an additional two and a half pages.

Kafka and Son is a one man show that focuses on this letter and the tense relationship between Franz Kafka and a man that has been described as a “huge, selfish, overbearing businessman”. A man that terrified and haunted him until his end.

If you dare to contemplate what the inside of Kafka’s head looked and sounded like, you’re likely to find much of it painted for you here, in all of its poetry and dark imagery.

Beautifully haunting and oddly twisted, this is a truly fine little show, which will be of particular interest to those who know of the writer and his work. If you don’t know of him, or know relatively little, then this would be an ideal introduction to one of the finest writers of the 20th Century.

Alon Nashman slips into Kafka’s skin with apparent ease, bringing heart and vulnerability to a man few would dare to portray and fewer with any degree of respectability. Packed with edgy energy and booming heart, this is what the Fringe is all about.

The Stage

alon — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 20:51:32 +0000

Review by Nick Awde

Published online at 09:19 on Friday 19 August 2011

Franz Kafka’s Letter to His Father is a strange piece of literature – is it really ‘literature’ for a start, since it was originally a private letter (admittedly a hefty 45 pages) moaning about his overbearing father? It is possibly of interest only to Kafka completists or those seeking extra insight into the writer’s worldview. And yet, in the hands of Alon Nashman’s one-man show, it becomes something far greater.

Adapted by Nashman and director Mark Cassidy in a sort of inside-out Chekhov or petulant J’Accuse, the letter is almost comic in its bleakness, challenging our disbelief at how a father could be so unrelenting but also why a son could still be hanging in there, living at home at the age of 35.

Family, society and its expectations figure prominently in Kafka’s work, and Kafka and Son gives us the reality behind a masterpiece such as Metamorphosis. We hear Kafka Senior belittling his son’s friends, ordaining correct etiquette at the table, dominating in swimming, a monster with the employees at the family firm, a hypocrite for cleaning his ears with a toothpick. Of course there was a gentler side, and father and son did have points in common such as failing to find solace in Judaism.

To amplify his words and gestures, Nashman has an eerie arsenal at his disposal, created by designers Marysia Bucholc and Camelia Koo – a set of wire cages, black feathers and a bare bed frame. Combined with composer Osvaldo Golijov’s washes of raucous klezmer-tinged strings, they help to punctuate the action, creating discrete episodes and moods.

This is clever stuff where there is a lot more going on under Nashman’s deceptively simple narrative and matter of fact tones. We understand that Kafka understands that this is what has made him what he is, that it rightly or wrongly gives him his drive. The result is the realisation that we have spent an hour eavesdropping on family intimacies where rejection goes hand in hand with acceptance.

Fringe Guru ★★★★★

alon — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 20:43:25 +0000

CRITIC’S CHOICE Wednesday, 17 August 2011

Reviewed by Carmel Doohan

If this letter, written by Kafka to his father in 1919, were read out by a motionless man on a propless stage it would be powerful enough. Performed by Alon Nashman, it is simply breathtaking. He is Franz Kafka, and as he climbs the sparse wire furniture he seems to embody every ounce of his pain.

Kafka is a Czech word for blackbird and the set is made from feathered cages. He tells us he is writing as an escape, but can only write of those things he wishes to escape from. He grasps the dark feathers to use as quills but they flutter away, spreading black dust across the stage. He is trapped on all sides, but like the caged bird he must sing on; it is the only freedom he has left.

He is trying to explain, to his father, why he is still afraid of him. This is difficult, for it seems that Franz had a very Kafkaesque childhood; in his world the law was unnamed and unfollowable, yet could not be disobeyed. He describes a world split into three; one for him (the slave), one for his father (the law maker), and one for the rest of the world (who are happy). He then shows how this kind of entrapment is something we do to ourselves; referring to the simile of a bird in the hand and the two in the bush he says: ‘in my hand I have nothing, in the bush, everything…and yet I must choose nothing.’

The piece is staggeringly insightful. Ideas about gratitude, guilt, power and disobedience feel fresh and contemporary. Nashman articulates the knot inside Kafka with such intensity that it becomes a visual thing. As the letter is danced, it grows into more than the struggle of one man and his father; speaking of himself as we, his story begins to illuminate our own private battles with the things that twist us.

His father never received these words, and Kafka’s dying wish (thankfully ignored) was that all his writings were burnt unread; this letter tries to show how a person could grow to have so little idea of their own worth, and how such a cage might be built. Perhaps among the blackbird feathers there are also those of a coal-dusted canary; singing to warn us of the things that can destroy a man.

The Herald ★★★★

alon — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 08:46:54 +0000

Kafka and Son

reviewed by Mary Brennan

August 27, 2010

Alon Nashman’s bleak and utterly compelling Kafka and Son has an intensely pulverising effect even on those of us who didn’t have bullying, authoritarian fathers. This is the nightmare territory of adults projecting their values, ambitions, frailties and failures onto their children. Then blaming them when, almost inevitably, they don’t conform to expectations.

Even in his thirties, the writer Franz Kafka couldn’t escape the tyranny of his father’s contempt. He filtered it into his fiction, as if words could exorcise it but to no avail. Kafka senior, the overbearing self-made man, effectively emasculated his only son.

Nashman seamlessly serves up both sides of this story. As Kafka senior, he looms larger than life – all bluff and hearty even when shredding Franz’s fragile self-esteem. As Franz, he seems to shrivel into half his size and become a nervy waif who nonetheless recounts his tribulations with an unexpected comic flair. Again, like Gurney-Randall’s Mussolini, the sheer finesse of the performance demands your applause. Nashman pulls you right into the entrails of a mental abuse that makes your heart pound and your skin crawl. The relief of walking out into daylight makes you know how brilliant he is.

FreshAir ★★★★★

alon — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 08:36:23 +0000

Kafka and Son

“Dearest Father,” Kafka wrote in a letter to his father Hermann in 1919, “You asked me recently why I maintain that I am afraid of you… And if I now try to give you an answer in writing, it will still be very incomplete…”

The fifty-page letter never reached Hermann, who outlived his son by seven years. Now it is brought to life in an imaginative new adaptation for stage by Canadian companies Theaturtle and Threshold Theatre, as a monologue for Alon Nashman.

Stylistically sublime, ‘Kafka and Son’ is theatrically outstanding. We first meet Nashman as the timorous, insecure Franz, writing the above opening words. His desk: a bed of black feathers atop a small cage, his words: the same feathers as they rained through the mesh as he writes. Nashman then effortlessly morphs into father Hermann, whose guttural, sickly laugh makes the audience as uneasy as Franz. As the latter recounts how crushing an effect his father’s influence has had on him, the monochrome minimalistic set morphs as seamlessly as Nashman into a dining room, an iron bed into a cubicle, all the time the black feathers the central prop. The lighting, which eerily casts a monstrously towering shadow of Hermann as he leers at his inferior offspring, or illuminates a single white feather as Franz discusses his failed proposals, is used to sensational effect.

This is intense theatre. Accompanied by brilliantly emotive jewish folk music, Nashman compellingly, with a dark energy that never waivers, details the paternal episodes which have dogged his life ever since: his father’s body, work, Judaism, marriage.

“As usual,” Kafka wrote, “I was unable to think of any answer to your question, partly for the very reason that I am afraid of you, and partly because an explanation of the grounds for this fear would mean going into far more details than I could even approximately keep in mind while talking.” Nevertheless, Nashman’s attempt through monologue is worthy of the countless accolades he has hitherto been awarded in Canada. An inspired performance, and a remarkable piece of theatre.

Reviewed by Sacha Timaeus 22/08/2010

http://www.freshair.org.uk/node/1737

Broadway Baby ★★★★★

alon — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 08:27:17 +0000

The Best £12 I’ve Never Spent

by Oscar Q. Berry
August 15, 2010

Franz Kafka was born in Prague in 1883, after his death fourty years later his novels have become some of the most influential and extensive work of the 20th century. We join this production as Kafka sits, poised to begin a fifty page letter to his overbearing father Hermann. This shouldn’t bode well for an evening of entertaining theatre.

However Alon Nashman’s performance is spell-binding. The audience are taken through a physical tornado of story telling that recalls some of Kafka’s most haunting, charming and moving memories. Even the obvious limitations of performing a one-man show are skilfully avoided, I genuinely didn’t wish for another actor to appear once. Nashman’s characters are funny, detailed and absolutely truthful.

The whole production is flawless really; the set (Marysia Bucholc and Camellia Koo), the lights (Andrea Lundy) and the sound design (Darren Copeland) are worth the ticket price alone.

Director Mark Cassidy has created something of real tangible beauty – it actually doesn’t matter if you know nothing of Kafka or his writing – simply sit back and enjoy. The attention to detail in the staging and stagecraft shown through Nashman is staggering.

I can’t stop thinking about this show.

Three Weeks ★★★★

alon — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 11:36:49 +0000

Kafka And Son

Theaturtle/ Threshold Theater
Adapted from Franz Kafka’s writings, this haunting one-man piece follows the writer as he attempts to understand his turbulent relationship with his dominating father. From its outset, the play displays eerie and haunting undertones, highlighted by the well chosen music. The ingenious use of set items such as a cage, metal fencing and a rusty bed frame mirror the vision of Kafka’s entrapment presented in the script: imprisoned by the fear he felt for his father. Alon Nashman delivered a stunning performance, embodying the physically weak, yet intellectually resilient Kafka with every movement. In addition, Nashman’s portrayal of Kafka’s father, which included a dramatic voice change and exceptional lighting, really brought the conflict between the two men to life.
Bedlam Theatre, 6 – 28 Aug (not 16,17), 2.30pm, £10.00 – £12.00, fpp 263.

tw rating 4/5

[sj]

Total Theatre

alon — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 08:32:35 +0000

Theaturtle and Threshold Theatre

Kafka and Son

Bedlam Theatre | Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Outside Bedlam (rather fittingly) there is a man in a cage giving out flyers. His son sits on top playing the violin. He is promoting his show, Kafka and Son, which comes with very high ratings from across Canada. Fortunately, Alon Nashman’s approach to theatre-making is as imaginative and convincing as his promotional technique.

The play is adapted and directed by Mark Cassidy from Franz Kafka’s ‘Letter to His Father’, written in 1919 but never sent. It provides a brilliant insight into Kafka’s personality and a context for stories such as ‘The Trial’, ‘The Castle’ and ‘Metamorphosis’.

Performing solo, Nashman creates, with care, two very distinctive characters: the senior Kafka, an imperious shop-keeper, a bully to his staff and his family; and his cowed son, insecure, sickly and desperate for love. The Letter offers episodes from Franz’s life on which his father’s influence has been most cruelly felt. Scenes at the dinner table, the swimming pool, at bedtime and in the synagogue are vividly portrayed in a performance that is vocally and physically strong. The father’s attitude and language, his bulk and his ability to belittle and terrorize his son are painful to witness.

Simple props are used to great effect. A bare metal-spring bed, a cage and a frame become all manner of settings. Mounds of black feathers provide food, pens and weather. Franz was hugely troubled about sex, and his ‘inability to marry’ despite three attempts, with three different women, contributes to the physical and psychological ailments which dog his short life. Needless to say, his father’s advice on how to overcome this inability renders Franz speechless with horror. The women are beautifully represented by one large white quill, a beam of light on an otherwise suitably monochrome stage.

A key moment in the text and a stunning part of the play is when Nashman’s narration changes from the voice of Franz to his father. This Nashman accomplishes with panache – the voice becomes bigger, deepens; a giant shadow is cast on the back wall.

Kafka means jackdaw. The final image, in which Franz exchanges black feathers for white wings and takes flight, little knowing he will become one of the twentieth centuries most influential novelists, resonates.

Lisa Wolfe

Edmonton Journal ★★★★★

alon — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 13:00:30 +0000

Kafka and Son

Liz Nicholls, Edmonton Journal
Published: Friday, August 17, 2007

You’ve got to wonder about the dark and labyrinthine mind that created The Trial and The Castle, and thought up Gregor Samsa, who woke to find himself transformed into a giant cockroach.

This brilliant little solo show takes you there, via the 50-page letter to his father, airing his manifold grievances, that Franz Kafka never sent. It doesn’t take a theatre artist, of course, to air the news that Kafka didn’t have a happy boyhood, especially since his diaries and letters have a direct pipeline to the pathologies of the 20th century psyche. Fascinating details notwithstanding, that’s not what Kafka And Son, adapted by actor Alon Nashman and director Mark Cassidy, is about, in the end.

What happens onstage is, thrillingly, of the theatre: it’s a fantasia on a thorny father-son relationship realized in ingenious stage imagery, and shedding an eerie light on an enigmatic artist in the process. In a double performance of extreme and precise virtuosity, Nashman is both the frustrated writer locked into a dreary life as a petty bureaucrat, a notable failure with women and still living at home at age 36, and the harsh, overbearing tyrant of a father who terrorizes him, demeans him, and is, in an agonizing way, his doppelganger, his doom and his muse. “My writing,” says Franz quietly, “is all about you.”

The design, unusually complex for a Fringe show, is an expressionist nightmare of interlocking cages, shafted by stark light and dark shadows. The much-abused term Kafka-esque does not go amiss here. There are images of flight, there’s a rain of black feathers like so much volcanic ash. And there’s Nashman, across whose slight frame and delicate features, pass a whole world of nightmares.

VueWeekly ★★★★★

alon — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:36:00 +0000

VueWeekly Edmonton and Saskatoon
August 23 to 30, 2007, Eva Marie Clarke

Kafka & Son

Clotted black feathers, a white plume, a spinning silvery cage, a grating, rasping chuckle—each is a brushstroke in a horrifically beautiful nightmare. Alon Nashman, in this adaptation of Franz Kafka’s letter to his domineering father, never stoops to sentimentality in this memorable performance. Kafka senior might be a hypocritical bully, but the bookish son is self-righteously parasitic. That uneasy tension flavours much of this unsettling production imbuing Kafka’s words with the echoing rattle of a pebble tossed into an abyss of inarticulate love between two disparate personalities. Chilling, unexpectedly, grotesquely funny at times, Kafka & Son is pure, unadulterated, surreal goodness.