PATRANTUN KAFKA Play Review

Pradnya Ganla	Host-A-Performance \| Schedule

Direction : Dhanashri Khandkar Cast : Ashish Joshi & Dhanashree Khandkar

PATRANTUN KAFKA Review

My 'fear' is my substance, and probably the best part of me. - Franz Kafka

It is always fascinating to delve into the creative process behind any artwork, be it a painting, a sculpture or a poem. Recently, spectators received an opportunity to have a closer look at the forces behind timeless writer Franz Kafka's artistic expressions through a Marathi drama Patrantun Kafka. Till date, even after the 100 years of his death, Kafka (1883 - 1924) has had a significant impact on modern writers and culture of global mankind.

Kafka expressed a wish to destroy all of his unpublished literature before he died of tuberculosis at the young age of 41 and so handed over all this work including letters and journals to his friend Max Brod. Knowing the worth of this work Brod published it in six volumes after his death with the help and permission of Kafka's family.

This play is a collage of some parts from Kafka's important work published by Brod. It includes his letters written to his beloved women, Felice Bauer (Letters to Felice Bauer) and Milena Jesenska (Letters to Milena), along with his short story Before the law and significant Letter to his father. The actors, Ashish Joshi and Dhanashri Khandkar plays and interchanges both the roles of Kafka and his friend Brod while subtly moving through the binding narration and portraying other characters also. The carefully selected writings tries to understand Kafka's nature, emotional status, feelings, thoughts, moods and its impact on his life vision and ultimately on his literature.

In the beginning after getting to know the background of Kafka's after-death wish and Brod's role in publishing Kafka's till then unknown work, we delicately enter into the writer's love life through his letters. He was in a relationship with Felice and Milena at different stages of life though both the relationships could not sustain despite the official engagements. These letters show the ups and downs, the battles, and the bond between these individuals but importantly it deals with the creative process, motives behind Kafka's writings. We get to know how expressing through the different genres of literature was important to him. This thread leads us to the presentation of his famous short story Before the law. It is a story of a country man trying to get through a gateway that will let him enter into the law but the access is denied to him by the gatekeeper standing in front of the open gate despite the pleas, arguments, cries and even bribes offered by the man. This pattern repeats itself years after years until the man loses hope. Like many of Kafka's stories this story also illustrates the lonely hero who is struggling against power where the battle often starts with enthusiasm but ends with the hero's defeat most of the time. His literature often depicts negative emotions like shame, guilt and disgrace. While progressing the play tries to find out the source of such emotions and reasons of Kafka's personal defeats and we reach to the next part of dramatization of his Letters to his father. The dominating and ambitious nature of Kafka's accomplished father had a lot of destructive impacts on Kafka who was the eldest of the surviving children and thus raised under a lot of pressure. This letter is not only a piece of artwork but also a very personal document with a wide social angle. In this undelivered letter Kafka has opened up his heart and expressed all his suppressed emotions and complaints against his father which puts lights on the specific themes repeating through his immortal literature.

It's really a pleasure to try to understand mesmerizing Franz Kafka and his writings that are important to him and his readers too. The translation is done by Nikhilesh Chitre and the play is directed by Dhanashri Khandkar. Technical aspects are good. The actual performance will get more polished as more shows will take place.

*Pradnya Ganla is a multimedia professional and an author who is trained in voice-over and theatre.

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