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4.0 out of 5 stars
A fantasia and dissection on the subject of Franz Kafka, April 2 1997
By A Customer
The particular text of the two with which I am concerned is "Kafka's Dick." My reading of the text was in conjunction with a directing class production at the local university. At the time the literary vivisectionist aspects of this play touched rather close to home. Quite frankly, I was sick of picking nits and wanted so desperately to just *enjoy* a story. But he daily rape of dead authors in English classes mad that quite impossible. Why they were teaching Chekoslovakian authors in English lit I'll never know.
"Kafka's Dick" deals with just that subject in a rather surreal way. Franz Kafka and his friend and publisher Max Brod are brought back to life in the living room of a literary critic who just happens to be writing on the subject of Franz Kafka. Franz discovers unexpected fame and utter embarrasment at the thought of having his sexual organs bandied about in public. The author is lost in a great sea of literary criticism. The author's work is forgotten or only half remembered:
KAFKA: . . . A beetle.
BROD: Say again?
KAFKA: Not a cockroach. You said cockroach. It was a
beetle.
BROD: Will you listen to this man. I make him world
famous and he quibbles over entomology.
Franz is himself oblivious to it all:
SYDNEY: . . . What you're saying is he doesn't know he's
Kafka.
BROD: He knows he's Kafka. He doesn't know he's KAFKA.
This makes for some truly fine comedy at the expense of authors, critics, publishers, and readers of fine literature. A bit of the humor, however, is a little Kafka-specific (which is to be expected, really). This might make the show suffer from the same intellectual inaccessability that it complains of in the world of literary criticism. Nevertheless, I found the text to be quite amusing having only read the standard required Kafka short stories. This was mostly due to it's truly bizarre nature. The play ends on an odd twist with Kafka in heaven:
(The music swells as GOD and CARMEN MIRANDA dance.
Then it fades as KAFKA comes forward to the audience.)
KAFKA: I'll tell you something. Heaven is going to be
hell.
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