Kafka at Catalyst

We subscribed to Catalyst Theater's season this year for a grand sum of $30 per person for 3 plays. You can't do better than that. Talk about making theater accessible. There's less than 50 seats in the house so every seat is a good one and the experience is certainly intimate and immediate.

Last night we saw the first play, "The Trial" by Franz Kafka. The acting company did a very good job with it and the set design was almost completely done with video on screens, a very interesting approach, which added to the surreal quality of this absurdist tale.

Hilarious and horrifying, The Trial is the tale of Joseph K., a man arrested and put on trial before a mysterious court that never discloses his alleged crime.

Kafka? Not a happy guy. "The Trial" is not a happy tale. If you read the playbill it states that this was an unfinished work that Kafka requested his friend burn upon his death. He trusted the wrong friend. It makes me wonder if Kafka would have ever brought this play to the public and what it would have wound up as if it had been completed under his hands versus having it completed by someone else. Maybe better, maybe worse. We'll never know.