caso Kafka storia
 

Il caso Kafka - Story

The importance of the meeting between Franz Kafka and Yiztchak Löwy at the Café Savoy in Prague during the year 1911, and the friendship which ensued between them, is not to be underestimated. In more ways than one, the Polish actor revealed Kafka to himself. Through him, the young assimilated Jew Kafka discovered tradition, the Judaism of eastern Europe and its deep roots. A rebellious son, determined to satisfy his own artistic vocation at all costs, he uncovered the nature of Kafka's relationship with his father – in fact, Löwy is a fundamental presence in the famous (and never sent) Letter to my Father by Franz Kafka.

The new show by Roberto Andò (director) and Moni Ovadia – whose title picks up a "clinical" expression of Walter Benjamin's - Il caso Kafka (The Kafka Affaire) revolves around this meeting and uses it as a key to investigate and understand the Jewish identity. But rather than seeking out a direct comparison of the two characters and their differing concepts of the world (and Judaism), Il caso Kafka proceeds by accumulating signs and suggestions (among them, naturally, quotations from Kafka).

The Café Savoy is inhabited by a very old, silent waiter. The place is strewed with used glasses and piles of old shoes (those abandoned by the Jews as they entered the gas chambers). A little theatre scene is being played, something from the Bible, the acting is ridiculously and heroically inadequate: but Kafka has come to realize that in the inadequacy of the theatre, in its being comic and tragic at the same time, resides its truth. He himself feels as inadequate as anyone could.

Suddenly, a passionate little orchestra of shabbily coated Jews with long, flowing beards bursts on the scene (the by now legendary TheaterOrchestra). For a moment, the presence of Nathan the Wise materialises. There are explosions of silent laughter, mute, like those which impressed Kafka's friends so much. And we hear the echo of rare passages of the Diaries in the voice of Bruno Ganz. (...)

(Excerpt from Oliviero Ponte di Pino's review - "Il manifesto", 23 January, 1997)
   
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