Review: The Trial

Luring an audience to The Trial on a sunny Tuesday evening was never going to be an easy feat. However, those that chose to shun the sun were well rewarded with a highly skilled adaption. 

The play’s strongest asset was its fantastically effective staging. With the audience seated in the round, a tiny raised stage in the center where actors jostled for space both focused the action and enhanced the sense of claustrophobia.

The bare square was constantly mutating in location- from office to cell, court, stage. The actors similarly shifted roles, appearing as telephones, paintings, or typewriters in order to physically dramatize a non-existent backdrop.

Although sometimes confusing, this was most effective when the performance took into account the 360 degree viewing angle of the audience. Four actors forming pillars at the corner of the stage faced inwards, echoing the viewers, and creating tension with their silent frame.

Spooky white faces leered in the dim light, sickly yellow light flooded the cell scene, and a bare spotlight trained on Joseph from straight above. Voices in the dark whispered, chuckled and hissed around the audience. The dynamic staging allowed them to move stealthily through the seated crowd.

The vast array of cameo personae played by the five actors made for certain standout performances – Matt Broomfield as an exuberant Tintorelli, Josie Richardson as a skulking Block.

Alex Shavick carried off the agitated and tremulous inner thought processes of Joseph K with style, at times perhaps a little too frantic in delivery.

At points, stilted delivery rendered the already absurd and disjointed dialogue almost impossible to follow, and certain parts – such as the descriptive monologues – came off a little synthetic and exaggerated.

Just as you began to suspect the production of falling foul of the artificiality and affectation of student drama, there came a fantastic pastiche of ‘overacting,’ as Joseph K called on a bunch of overenthusiastic thesps to act out a scene from his memory, cutting down their posturing and preening.

The Trial was technically brilliant, well rehearsed and seamlessly executed. The fragmented and difficult play will never be an easy ride for audiences, however, unusual and effective techniques such as the third personal narration of characters onstage ensured that the narrative element was not lost in the chaos.

The play suffered from being too long, but any adaption of Kafka that managed to avoid pretension and keep audiences gripped with a blend of both dark humour and bleakness can be considered a success.