By Lei Ioi Chon, Macao theatre practitioner

Regarded as the forerunner writer of existentialism, Kafka is also a novelist who has a tremendous impact on contemporary philosophy, with The Trial being an iconic piece of his core ideas. The world depicted in the novel tends to be distant, deserted and monotonous. An absurd reality and loneliness is the true portrait of the emerging modern society in the 20th century at the time. In The Trial, the protagonist K. is the chief cashier of a bank. One day he is “arrested” all of a sudden, but no one can explain to him what is going on. He continues his life as usual whilst awaiting the unspecified “trial” on the unspecified “crime” he cannot possibly defend himself against. He attempts to fight against the corrupted system and the unspeakable manipulating power, yet all his sensibility and effort is eliminated by the world’s cold orderlessness, until the moment when all the bizarreness comes to an end.

Kafka’s works do not attend much to the storyline, but focus on cultivating the literary image of lonely despair and total absurdity, in order to present the mental reality and existential status of human being. This approach has a long lasting yet refreshing effect, and also provides a lot of room for imagination and representation in the theatre. The Korean Sadari Movement Laboratory exploits body movements, music, lighting and mise-en-scène to deliver the cold and stiff atmosphere Kafka has so forcefully tried to illustrate.

The multiple layers of meaning presented in the play, coupled with the well-executed performance of the dancers and their powerful body language with great precision, suffice to some stand-alone success. It is like the clever dialogues condensed from the original text, which contrasts the absurd situation K. finds himself in with the reality today, generating abundant imagination. The audiences’ experience would resonate with the powerful oppression conveyed in the original novel even if they have never read it before.

This article is excerpted and translated from Chinese