Playwright: Ken Prestininzi
At: Trapdoor Theatre,
1655 W. Cortland
Phone: ( 312 ) 384-0494; $17
Runs through: July 30
BY RICK REED
Near the end of the interminable and pretentious Amerikafka, one of the characters says, "There's nothing more human than passionate failure."
Amerikafka, then, is a fine example of humanity. The character, to take it a step further, was even talking about theater.
From Kate Hendrickson's direction, to many of the performances, to Sarah Bendix's wonderful puppet design, everything about Amerikafka reeks passion. It's obvious that everyone involved has invested their hearts and intellects in trying to breathe life into Prestininzi's play. Unfortunately, the playwright has opted to weigh his script down with too many themes and plot lines, to state and re-state themes over and over just to make sure we get what he's saying about Judaism, the misguided vision of an iconic America ( or Amerikaka, as the characters like to call it ) , and to wallow in theatre-of-the-absurd pretentiousness. Prestininzi's play concerns itself first with the final days of a tubercular and dying Franz Kafka ( he was only 41 when he succumbed ) and it opens with a powerful image of the young Kafka ( Tom Bateman in the play's most grounded and professional performance ) nude, trying to breathe, and only coughing up blood. But then the play begins to veer off in many different directions. One thread is about the Yiddish theatre troupe led by Kafka's friend, Itzhak Lowy ( an earnest, but not quite in control performance from Jason Powers ) , which allows for exploration of Judaism and the pitfalls of show business. Another thread is a play-within-the-play dramatization of Kafka's unfinished novel ( supposedly influenced by Kafka's interest at the time in Charles Dickens ) , The Man Who Vanishes ( retitled by Kafka's friend and mentor Max Brod as Amerika ) . This is probably the most unbearable part of the play because it relentlessly tries for an over-the-top, hammed-up style which quickly grows old with its one-note volume and intensity made worse by an annoying lead performance by K.K. Dodds as a sort of aw-shucks doppelganger for Kafka that reminds one too much of The Little Rascals Alfalfa.
Another thread deals with the future fate of Kafka's comrades after his death at the hands of the Nazi regime. Yet another deals with Kafka's relationship with his three sisters. Another explores parent/child relations. Yet another goes off on the tangent of romance, or lack thereof, in Kafka's life.
Perhaps whittled down to a couple of the above themes, Amerikafka might have succeeded. But packed to the gills as it is with ideas and styles, it becomes an endurance contest between the audience and the players who will endure until the end. The audience doesn't win. Curtain was at eight and the curtain call was at 10:40.
Amerikafka makes for a long evening, especially when its intensity ( and passion ) held at full throttle, has worn thin by the intermission.