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Kafka's
Dick at Salisbury Playhouse |
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play ends in heaven with a riotous cocktail party |
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Alan
Bennett's play opens in 1919 with a tubercular Franz Kafka persuading
his friend to swear to burn all Kafka's work after his death.
The story is then transported to present day Leeds where the two friends
meet again |
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Yes, the
title of the play means just what you may expect, although this juxtapositioning
of the name of Kafka with schoolboy terminology may discourage the
intellectual yet offend the prudish.
The play is a strange yet engaging piece which received mixed reviews
when it opened in the West End.
You
will either like it or loathe it.
So
what is it all about?
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| Gregory
Fox-Murphy as Kafka and Susan Tordoff as Linda |
The play
opens in Prague in 1920 when a consumptive and wheelchair-bound Kafka
contemplates his death and extracts a promise from his friend Max
Brod to burn all his manuscripts after his death.
Bennett leaves us uncertain as to whether Kafka is sincere in his
request but in any event Brod ignores the request, arranging for posthumous
publication of Kafka’s works.
This, together with a biography of his friend, brings Brod fame and
fortune.
The otherwise gloom of this opening scene is lightened with Jewish
humour. "You look really depressed" says Brod. "Wouldn’t you be depressed?
I’m dying" Kafka replies.
The
action then leaps to the suburban home of Sydney, who, like Kafka,
works in insurance and obsessed with Kafka is in the process of writing
an article about him for his professional journal.
The doorbell rings and in bounces a reincarnated Brod who having been
caught short has urinated not only on Sydney’s doorstep but on his
tortoise.
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| Michael
Hadley as Sidney, Gregory Fox-Murphy as Kafka and Susan Tordoff
as Linda |
The
tortoise promptly metamorphoses into a revived Kafka, a neat reversal
of a Kafkaesque literary device.
The play has many such allusions as in the case of Sydney’s aged father
who lives in dread of being taken away by Social services to a home.
Ken Ratcliffe, as the father, extracts some of the best laughs of
the play from his part, exiting crossly on his Zimmer frame.
The appearance of the reincarnated Kafka prompts frantic and hilarious
efforts by Brod and Sydney to hide all evidence of the publication
of Kafka’s works, and of Brod’s broken promise.
All to no avail since Kafka finds a book and miserably has to accept
his posthumous fame.
Sydney’s wife, Linda, confidence destroyed by the boring Sydney warms
to Kafka. "When did you get the writing bug?" she enquires.
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| Gregory
Fox-Murphy as Kafka and Colin Prockter as Herman K |
However, Linda, aware that they should be dead is understandably suspicious
of the reincarnated duo and has previously telephoned the police.
They duly arrive in the larger than life person of Kafka’s tyrannical
father, a part played with great gusto by the excellent Colin Prockter.
The play ends in Heaven with a riotous cocktail party, God naturally
being in the person of Kafka’s father complete with illuminated halo.
"Go easy on the cheese straws" says God. "Heaven is going to be hell"
says a glum Kafka.
Although the play is at all times humorous Bennett takes a serious
point.
Is the private life – here the anatomy of the writer – more important
than his work? Are we too obsessed with who slept with whom rather
than with their achievements?
All in all a play which may not be for everyone but which is at worst
thought provoking and at best intelligent and humorously entertaining.
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Salisbury Playhouse until Saturday 6 July.
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