Jack Klaff’s extraordinary one-man show lives up to the adjective coined from franza kafka’s name

Franz Kafka was born in Prague in July 1883 and died from tuberculosis in June 1924, just a month short of 41 years later. His family were middle-class Jews and, as subjects of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, spoke German: the Czech Republic did not come into being until 1918. Kafka studied law then, while working during the day as an insurance clerk, began writing fiction late into the night. His self doubt, evident in his novels and short stories, would lead down labyrinthine rabbit holes that inspired the adjective Kafkaesque.

For those who come fresh to Kafka, this is likely to be an eye-opener that will take them from his life to the body of work he left behind in a thrilling way. For those like me who have a long-standing fascination, Jack Klaff’s extraordinary in-depth exploration in this intense 90-minute one-man show offers many new insights into both the man and his writing.

From the moment director and lighting designer Colin Watkeys illuminates Jaroslav Nemrava’s set, creating mysterious nooks and crannies and revealing a hunched and intense figure, everything seems unpredictable, uncanny, often sinister. Klaff laughs at us. He moves suddenly, often vigorously. He pulls faces. He is both Kafka and the almost 50 characters listed in the programme including personal acquaintances taken from Kafka’s life as well as a range of other figures. These include fellow authors from Albert Camus and Brecht to Alan Bennett, and Jewish luminaries Albert Einstein and Walter Benjamin. There are family members, notably his overbearing father Hermann. He even plays a very credible ape and a bear – and all with no costume change from a simple dark suit!

Klaff also portrays a number of women in Kafka’s life, including Allegra, a feminist author, and Czech Jewish journalist Milena Jesenská. Included too is his fiancée Felice Bauer, whom he never married, possibly because of all those other women.

Kafka was an intense, haunted, genius with neurotic paranoia. His constant apprehension of terror inhabits novels such as The Trial, where an arrest for an unknown crime leads to incarceration and a horrific death. He may not have lived through the Holocaust, but his imaginings seems to foreshadow it.

If it were not for his close friend Max Brod, we might never have been able to read his writing, for Kafka ordered Brod to burn it all after his death. Happily for the world, Brod disobeyed his friend and made sure the work was published and read.

This month sees the fiftieth anniversary of Kafka’s death in 1924, just as next month marks the anniversary of his birth in 1883. So tributes in the media and on TV and radio, many fascinating and revealing, are available for those who wish to learn more about him; though I would say that those who are able to watch and experience Klaff’s incredible deep dive into Kafka onstage are fortunate indeed in getting closest to the uncomfortable reality of his world.

By Judi Herman

Photos by Marilyn Kingwill

Kafka runs until Saturday 6 July. 7.30pm, 3pm (Sat & Sun only). £20/£23, £18/£20 concs. Finborough Theatre, London, SW10 9ED. finboroughtheatre.co.uk