Kafka S Dick

Two Kafka Plays

'You have to keep your ears open for Alan Bennett's Insurance Man. It had visual impact so powerful that you were in danger of missing some very good lines simply because nobody spoke them in close up; you had to catch them on the wing. And if there was one line that summed up both Bennett's play and Kafka's novel The Trial, which provided some of this framework, that line was "Just because you're the injured party, it doesn't mean you're not guilty".' Guardian Kafka himself figures in these two brilliant scripts: one a hilarious comedy, the other a profound and searching drama. This edition includes an introduction by Alan Bennett.

Kafka's Dick

This hilarious and unusual play satirizes the ridiculous propensity we often have to show less interest in an artist's work than in meaningless details of his private life, such as his sex life. It begins with Kafka near the end of his life making his famous request to his friend Max Brod that his works be burned at his death. We then flash forward to the present, where Kafka fanatic Sydney, an insurance salesman, is laboring away at an article on Kafka for 'Small Print; The Journal of Insurance Studies'. Who should miraculously appear but Kafka himself, followed closely by Brod and finally by Kafka's father, who wants to vindicate himself to posterity. The penultimate scene takes place in Heaven, where Kafka observes: "I'll tell you something. Heaven is going to be hell."

Kafka's Dick