About the work
Stage adaptation of Franz Kafka's novel „Der Prozess", written between 1914 and 1915 and published posthumously in 1925 by Max Brod against Kafka's wishes. Numerous stage versions have been made — most prominently the adaptation by Steven Berkoff (1971) and André Engel's productions.
Plot
On his thirtieth birthday Josef K., a respected bank clerk, is awakened by two strangers who declare him under arrest. He is told nothing of the charge or the institution. He may continue to live and work; the trial is conducted „on the side". K. is summoned to a labyrinthine court that holds session in attic rooms above bourgeois apartments. Whores and fellow accused tell him stories. K.'s uncle Karl introduces him to the lawyer Huld, who is bedridden — Huld talks of the trial only in cryptic phrases. K. seeks the painter Titorelli, who explains the three possible verdicts: actual acquittal (never seen), apparent acquittal (recurring) and verschleppung (delaying tactic). In the cathedral a priest tells K. the parable „Before the Law" — a man waits a lifetime in vain for entry into the law. On his thirty-first birthday two men come to fetch K., lead him into a quarry and stab him to death — „like a dog". K.'s last words: „It was as if the shame would outlive him."
Cultural significance
„The Trial" is the central work of literary modernism on the senselessness of bureaucracy and the absurdity of guilt. Kafka's nightmare became a model for political theatre after 1945. Stage adaptations by Berkoff, Engel, Andreas Kriegenburg and Krystian Lupa are reference performances. Orson Welles's film of 1962 is a separate cinematic tradition. Kafka's writing made „kafkaesque" a worldwide synonym for absurd-bureaucratic experience.