About Kafka!

ABOUT KAFKA!
after Frank Kafka
In a version by Alexander Ritter
A production of the Rottstr 5 Theater

A production of the Rottstr 5 Theater

With
Henry Morales

Director, set
Alexander Ritter

Dramaturgy
Moritz Müller

Assistance
Rebecca Jooß, Kirill Zubarev

Lighting
Alexander Ritter

Production management
Stanislav Otremba

photos
Jonas Domrath

trailer
Siegersbusch Film Wuppertal

production
Alexander Ritter, Oliver Paolo Thomas

Duration: approx. 85 minutes

"Everything I have achieved is only a success of being alone."

He is the most important writer of the twentieth century, his life and work have been intensively researched - and yet, even 100 years after his death, Franz Kafka remains hidden behind his own myth. Who was this Kafka? And what drove him?
On June 3, 1924, Franz Kafka died of laryngeal tuberculosis a few weeks before his 41st birthday. He had previously instructed his friend Max Brod to burn all his notes after his death. Fortunately for posterity, however, Max Brod did not comply with this wish and instead published Kafka's entire estate.
How did Kafka manage to make the grotesque and uncanny so commonplace, and where do the boundaries between author and literary figure become blurred? Using letters, diary entries and, of course, Kafka's literature, author Alexander Ritter tries to fathom Kafka and lets him have his say, rethink his life and struggle with his demons and desires. It is an outline of his own life, a working through of his history and shows sides of a young man that you probably never knew before. Cranky and self-reflective, biting and humorous, always desperate and struggling.
And as his life is inextricably linked to his literature, Kafka's recapitulation of his life slips almost automatically back into his literature between personal thoughts and private letters, allowing dogs to speak, building death machines and being sentenced to death by his father.

"I have no literary interest, I consist of literature. I am nothing else and can be nothing else."

In a magnificent solo at the Rottstr 5 Theater, Henry Morales plays Franz Kafka in all his facets, as the desperate and the arrogant, the driven and the seeker.
(Hello Herne)

Henry Morales immediately brings his sometimes painful self-irony to bear in the midst of the spellbound audience and turns Alexander Ritter's adaptation into a highly exciting monodrama. It makes do with just a few props, including an overhead projector, and successfully relies on the emotional impact of classical music.
(Hello Herne)

The 85-minute evening "About Kafka!", which was also celebrated with ovations for the actor Henry Morales at the naturally sold-out premiere, takes a look at Kafka himself using his diaries and letters.
(Hello Herne)