Arts Editor

As the lights faded out on the final scene of The Trial, and the actors came out to take their final bows, I was left both frustrated and confused. This was not necessarily the fault of the Red Eye Theater’s innovative production of Franz Kafka’s novel, but more the nature of Kafka. Several days later, I’m still not sure what Kafka was trying to say—there are so many ways in which the story can be interpreted.

The play focuses on Joseph K, an urban bank clerk who finds as he sits down to breakfast one morning that two officers of justice are ready to arrest him for a crime that he doesn’t know he committed. Not only is Joseph K (played by Alexander Julian Gulck) unaware of the specifics of the crime, he is perplexed by the cryptic advice that the two guards leave him with—the purveyors of justice do not search for the guilty, the guilty come to them.

What follows is an odd, dark escapade that details Joseph K’s futile attempts to discover the nature of the crime for which he is accused and exonerate himself from a guilt of which he has no understanding. Throughout his ordeal, the audience is introduced to characters that serve only to heighten the sense of confusion and strangeness of K’s predicament.

A bailiff leads K through a labyrinthine police precinct populated with people in similar situations. K hires a half-crazed lawyer who professes to be quite successful, yet only seems to prolong K’s torment. The judge professes that he does not look favorably, and a decision on his case will have to be put off until later. K even visits a court painter for a reprieve from his legal woes; however, he concedes that it will be difficult to lift the stigma of his crime forever and he will always be at the mercy of ‘justice.’

Throughout the ordeal, K becomes increasingly frustrated and distances himself from these characters who attempt to offer any assistance. He digs himself into a hole of guilt from which he can never exit.

If this all seems a bit strange and disjointed, that’s because it is. Everything from the plot to the Red Eye’s set underscore the confusion and alienation felt by the lead character. No matter what K does, he is unable to shed light on the nature of his crime or why he is stuck in this seemingly intractable situation. The audience is given no clues, and is left all the more baffled by it.

Perhaps, however, this is the point.

Maybe Kafka is commenting on a justice system that is so corrupt and separated from human society, that it simply ‘invents’ crimes with to torture the populace. Or perhaps K truly is guilty of some crime—especially if the initial piece of advice about the guilty coming to the hands of justice is to be believed. Maybe Kafka did not intend for there to be a deep psychological meaning to his story, and simply saw this plot as another way to forward his themes of alienation and woe that seem to pervade his works, as well as his life.

This play is not for those easily bored by indiscernible, confusing stories that demand heavy philosophical thought. Its disjointed structure and seeming randomness may put-off all but the ardent Kafka fan. However the performance certainly lives up to the theatre’s experimental credo, and, if nothing else, will make you think.

The set, which appears simple at first—it consists of six or eight panels covered with canvas—is nonetheless effectively used. In between scenes, the characters roll the panels around in a choreographed dance to reposition them to form different rooms. Projectors then shine wallpaper or other images onto these panels to create the backgrounds.

The structure of the play itself is also quite unique. Both acts of the play begin with all of the characters moving silently across the stage, spying on each other and the audience. These scenes emphasize that we are all guilty in some way; any of us could be Joseph K.

The narrator of the play also takes on a creative role—she not only explains the action to the audience, but also serves as a sort of conscience for K. She gives him advice and attempts to take a more active role in the plot of the play.

All of this adds to the overall surreal and existential ambiance of the play. Even if sometimes confused by the significance and meaning of The Trial, I was still impressed by the Red Eye’s production.