Kafka's Monkey

Synopsis

'Honoured members of the Academy! You have done me the honour of inviting me to give you an account of the life I formerly led as an ape.' Imprisoned in a cage and desperate to escape, the ape-man reveals his rise through the ranks of the beasts to become a walking, talking, spitting, smoking, hard-drinking man of the stage.

Our Review:

23 March 2009

Kafka’s short story A report for an academy barely runs to ten pages, and Colin Teevan’s adaptation (slightly too modernised) for Kathryn Hunter’s extraordinary performance in the Maria studio of the Young Vic is a clipped distillation playing for just about forty-five minutes.

It’s both too much and too little, a perfect gem of a parable of stunted human endeavour in which the former ape, Red Peter – so named because of a red scar caused by the gunshot when he was captured on the Gold Coast – addresses us, “esteemed members of the academy”, at our invitation.

What was it like being an ape? He can’t remember. For five years he’s been assimilated, gradually, into the ways of men as a vaudeville entertainer. He’s rowed himself to the other shore, his choice of captivity being that of the zoo or the theatre; he chose variety, or vaudeville.

It’s an odd story, not really a Darwinian tract, nor a psychological study. Instead, Hunter seizes on the outer lineaments o...

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Latest User Review

fred - 4 April 2009:

This is acting at its very best. A stunning example of what acting can achieve. Very funny but, also, subtle, intelligent and mesmerising. Magnificent....

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