DER PROZESS [The Trial] [Dramatic Revival/German Language] AD: Jan Grossman; SC: Franz Kafka’s novel, The Trial; D: Oscar Fritz Schuh; S/C: Ursula Schuh; L: Heinz Kraile, Friedrich Schoberth; M: Eckart Ihlenfield; P: Gert von Gontard Foundation presents Szene 1971; T: Barbizon-Plaza Theatre (OB); 11/9/71-11/14/71 (8)
Note: No photos of
this production are available.
Small-scale German-language productions offered by visiting
German companies were a moderately regular part of the local scene in the early
70s, unlike recently where foreign-language theatre—aside from places like the
Japan Society—has been extremely rare. The present work, presented by the
touring group Szene 71, was a respectable version of Kafka’s nightmare novel
about the tribulations of Josef K (Hans von Borsody). It appeared in repertory
with Schiller’s Kabale
und Liebe.
The Trial tells the kind of nightmarish tale that has come to be called Kafka-esque: a man is on trial for a crime about which he has no idea. He also has no idea of who is trying him.
“The production," wrote Richard F. Shepard, the sole critic covering the work, "is not an incandescent one, and it is possible that this was not the aim. Josef K, the enmeshed protagonist . . . emerges again according to the director's specifications, as a very average fellow. This, too, is valid, but on the stage the work does not build up as excitingly as it does in the book.”
This ignores the fact that The Trial has
received several notable productions over the years, most famously the one adapted
and directed by the great French actor, Jean-Louis Barrault, who also starred
in it. (If you have access to my book, From
Stanislavsky to Barrault, you can read about it there). And, of course,
there is the film made
by Orson Welles, which he considered his masterpiece.
