AmeriKafka


BY: Ken Prestininzi
DIRECTED BY: Kate Hendrickson

OPENED: June 23, 2005
CLOSED: July 30, 2005

"Fascinating AmeriKafka is deliciously messy! Excellent...inventive...a notable achievement,"
-Chris Jones, The Chicago Tribune

"Alternately fierce and flamboyant ... a blend of the dreamy and nightmarish, the spiritual and profane, the heartbreaking and the soul-searching, the transcendent and the vulgar--with some hilarious X-rated puppetry too--it is a theatrical piece that captures both the mystery and tragicomedy of Kafka's real and imaginary worlds."
-Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun Times

"A remarkably deep portrait...Kate Hendrickson's production balances the play's wild imagination and it's passionate exploration of Kafka's life... Compelling, physically dynamic performances... Hilarious and heartbreaking...brilliant!"
-John Bee, New City

"Fornicating puppets!"
-Novid Parsi, Time Out Chicago

CAST: Tom Bateman, Mary Jo Bolduc, Marzenna Bukowska, Nicole Cardano, K.K. Dodds, Tien Doman, John Gray, Emily Lotspeich, Jason Powers, Holly Thomas, Nicolai Todorov, Scott Unes and Betsy Zajko.


ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Shane Oman
CHOREOGRAPHER: Genevra Gallo
COMPOSER: Kevin O'Donnell
LIGHTING DESIGN: Richard Norwood
SET DESIGN: Ewelina Dobiesz
SOUND DESIGN: Bob Rokos
COSTUME DESIGN: Jana Anderson
PUPPET DESIGN: Sarah Bendix
STAGE MANAGER: Jonathon Nininger


AmeriKafka...

One night in 1912 Franz Kafka went to the theatre and saw a traveling Yiddish Theatre troupe. Their approach to performance and narrative intoxicated him with its unabashed belief in possibilities, possibilities made up of pleasures, passion and pain.  The encounter led Kafka to produce an evening of Yiddish Theatre performed by Kafka's new friend and soulmate Itzhak Löwy.  The surrealist comedy AmeriKafka repeats and rehearses this  emotional tumble in Kafka's pysche as he tries to unify all the unfinished business of his life at the moment of his Death.