Kafka

Franz Kaf­ka was humb­le and avo­idant clerk, li­tera­ture was his sec­ret pas­si­on. By his own ad­missi­on he con­si­dered Flo­ber, Dos­to­evs­ky, and Go­gol as his “blo­od brot­hers”, ho­wever, he be­que­at­hed his ma­nusc­ripts to be bur­ned af­ter his de­ath. Aga­inst wri­ter’s will his fri­ends pub­li­shed his works, which we­re fil­led with pe­culi­ar vi­si­ons and pa­rado­xical plot li­nes, post­mor­tem. The­se pub­li­cati­ons bro­ught Kaf­ka worl­dwi­de fa­me. No­wada­ys, he is per­ce­ived as in­ge­ni­ous prop­het of XX th cen­tu­ry’s in­sa­nity, whi­le wri­ter’s na­me has be­come a sy­nonym of a spe­cific ty­pe of ab­surd. Kaf­ka’s li­fe was fil­led with overw­hel­ming de­sire of art, his texts con­ta­in vast ener­gy. For aut­hors of the play it did mat­ter to show wri­ter’s per­so­nali­ty to the full ex­tent of its re­al sop­histi­cati­on. 
The pro­duc­ti­on by Ki­rill Se­reb­renni­kov, ba­sed on the play by Va­lery Pe­che­ikin, is a com­bi­nati­on of bi­og­raphi­cal facts from li­fe of the wri­ter and plot li­nes cre­ated by his ima­gina­ti­on. Kaf­ka’s bes­ti­ary cha­rac­ters li­ve among re­al pe­op­le. Ac­cording to the idea of pla­yw­right Va­lery Pe­che­ikin on sta­ge the­re are cha­rac­ters from Kaf­ka’s “in­ternal bi­og­raphy”: star­ting from the fly­ing dogs and Gre­gor Sam­sa, re­ac­hing up to pe­culi­ar Od­ra­dek and pe­op­le, who ca­me in dre­ams. Three facts from Kaf­ka’s li­fe: 
1 Max Brod 
Kaf­ka hi­red him as an exe­cutor, who had to dest­roy all of the un­publi­shed works such as “The Tri­al” and “The Cast­le” which was not fi­nis­hed. Ne­vert­he­less, Max ha­ve bro­ken the will of his fri­end. That is how the worl­dwi­de glo­ry star­ted. 
2 Fa­mily was a pla­ce of cons­tant conf­licts for Franz, es­pe­ci­al­ly with his fat­her. Kaf­ka had even sent him his fa­mo­us let­ter, which now is pub­li­shed as stand-alo­ne work. 
3 Ma­ybe conf­licts and conf­ron­ta­ti­ons in his fa­mily pre­ven­ted Kaf­ka from cre­ating his own one. 
The­re is a cor­respon­dence with Fe­lice Ba­uer, bri­de of Franz, who ac­tu­al­ly did not be­come his wi­fe. Va­lery Pe­che­ikin, pla­yw­right: 
“The most comp­li­cated it was to find and rep­ro­duce the ab­surd which I not to be con­fu­sed with non­sense. Kaf­ka’s ab­surd has its own in­ternal lo­gic and one of my go­als was to find this lo­gic. It se­ems as even to­day we li­ve in the world whe­re the ab­surd is still a stan­dard me­asu­re of eve­ryt­hing. Re­ma­ins on­ly to re­pe­at wri­ter’s words: “I wo­uld li­ke to le­ad the word to pu­rity, truth, per­pe­tu­ity.” The pre­mi­ere oc­curred on 29 Ju­ne 2016.