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Saturday, 24 October 2009

The Trial - how might it be directed?

If I were directing the play, I might end it like this:

( I have tried to keep the language to the kind of thing you might be expected to produce in an exam)

I would like to create an impression of the absurdity of life by having a darkly surreal ending to the play.
At K's death the whole stage would be dark except for the figure of K lying DSC, lit by overhead spot. It dims. The stage is hushed. Another figure creeps forward from the darkness - hunched, nervous, like a creature. He hushes the audience: "Shhhhh!" and carefully places a mask on Joseph K's face.  It is a simple cardboard mask with a 1:1 size photo of Joseph K's broadly smiling face on it. Hopefully the audience will find this grotesque and creepy.
I would then have the same figure crouch by Joseph K's strangled corpse (which is now wearing a mask of his own smiling face) take off his hat and reach into it as if, like a stage magician, he is about to pull out a rabbit. He would look back and forth between the hat and the audience, inviting them into the trick, smiling.  In the darkness behind him the ensemble would use their voices to make the sound of a drum roll, adding to the macabre sense of Joseph K's death being entertainment.  Pulling his arm from the hat, he brandishes another, identical Joseph K mask, exclaiming "Ta -da!"  to the gasps, cries and applause of the hidden ensemble.  This is also a pre-arranged signal for the audience (who have each been given masks) - they reach beneath their chairs and put them on while the video screens upstage L and R flicker to life.  The ensemble step forward into the light - they too wear Joseph K masks and the action on the stage is frozen for a moment to allow the audience to watch each other and the screens.  On the screen a montage of short video clips shows people in Britain in familiar locations, all wearing Joseph K masks.  A man in a corner shop; commuters on a train; a woman in a kitchen wearing a floral apron - everyone is wearing the same face and the same grin.   The last shot is a Primary school class - the children all dressed in miniature pin-stripe waist coats like Joseph K and wearing smaller masks depicting a 9 year old Joseph K, all face front - the teacher comes into shot, turns around and we see it is K's Lawyer who stands in front of the class. Throughout the video recorded music which loops and repeats a crazed rhythym of threatening bass and plucked violin strings crescendos. The ensemble begin to create a scene of madness and chaos on stage - they become a writhing, disorganised mass of Joseph K's; laughing, screaming, getting louder and louder and randomly shouting K's lines from the play  - sometimes in pleading voices, sometimes as if delivering the punch line of a joke.  Their voices coincide with the two alternate mimes they perform - sometimes they appear to be violently struggling to pull their mask off and sometimes they are bent double with laughter.  At the loudest point, the lights snap to out black and there would be silence.  When the house lights come on, the audience will feel self conscious about wearing the mask and a bit wary about what might happen next.   I would have no curtain call - just open the doors and let them wander out of the theatre: slightly dazed and a little deflated.  I would hope by denying them the chance to applaud they might feel they have been conned into an elaborate joke. This would be in keeping with the function of the production.  I think the audience would enjoy becoming part of the action of the performance here - and I think it would help them understand my interpretation of the play - which is that we are all Joseph K and all our lives are rather absurd, pointless and something of a very detailed, grotesque practical joke.