Output details

Kafka's Monkey

This is an adaptation of Kafka’s story ‘A Report to the Academy’. Commissioned by the Young Vic it was developed with Kathryn Hunter and director Walter Meierjohann through explorative workshops, then written. We set out to develop a physical language, based on the anatomical study of chimpanzees at Whipsnade Zoo, that reflected the protagonist – a monkey, Red Peter, who has learnt how to behave as a human. The challenge for me as writer was to develop a spoken English version in which the leaps, twists and imagery of the Monkey’s were conveyed, while remaining true to Kafka’s text and supple enough to allow for the physical performance Hunter was developing. I worked first in prose, but then developed the ‘monkey’ verse in which the piece is written. Verse form gives it rhythm, pace and brevity. We also addressed ourselves to the question of what the academy to which the piece is addressed might be and how the tension of the relationship between speaker and audience that is implied in Kafka’s text might be play out live in our contemporary auditorium. This developed into a language of engagement with each audience. Structurally the short story lacked a final confrontation between audience and the monkey, so I grafted and adapted a fragment of abandoned Kafka text relating to the Monkey to achieve this, where he challenges the audience to ‘Smell me.’ The play asks how the outsider must ‘adapt or die’ and questions what we lose in this process. The focus on this theme, the universality of the rhythms of the verse, and the final confrontation enabled this play to engage with audiences five continents, in over 20 languages.