Kathryn Hunter’s performance in Kafka’s Monkey is one of the most incredible feats by an actor that you’re likely to see on the stage. As we prepare to bring this amazing production to HOME after a highly acclaimed international tour, we caught up with our Artistic Director of Theatre, Walter Meierjohann, to tell us about his first encounter with Kathryn…
I first saw Kathryn in Fragments, an evening of short pieces by Samuel Beckett, directed by Peter Brook, in the studio space of the Young Vic. Her performance blew me away – rarely have I seen an actress who was so in command of language, with a wonderful deep voice and incredible physicality.
The next day I spoke to David Lan (Artistic Director at the Young Vic) about Kathryn and Franz Kafka’s short story A Report To An Academy, which I could picture her performing. It is a story very much in line with his famous tale of man turned beetle, Metamorphosis; here it is a monkey captured in Africa who for reasons of pure survival decides to become a human being in the short period of five years. It is all about assimilation and captures Kafka’s experience as a German speaking Jew in Prague at the beginning of the 20th century. It is written as a monologue, with the monkey addressing an imaginary audience in a lecture hall.
Kathryn couldn’t meet me during her last days of the run at the Young Vic, but we managed to meet in Southampton where Fragments was playing after the Young Vic. I met her in a hotel lobby early in the morning, slightly nervous and with a copy of A Report To An Academy in my bag. She was incredibly charming and said she would like to read the text aloud, which she did. In front of my eyes she transformed into a monkey, capturing all the absurdities, the wit and the pain of the creature. During her reading I even forgot that monkeys don’t normally talk – I was speechless, and then asked the seven word (and potentially rude!) question “Would you like to play a monkey?” to which she very simply replied “I have always wanted to play a monkey.”
We worked on the piece in three workshops over a year before rehearsals started and Kathryn suggested bringing on board the talented writer Colin Teevan, who set Kafka’s language into verse. Colin then suggested bringing in Nikola Kodjabashia and he composed a beautiful score for the story.
My long time set designer Steffi Wurster made a very simple but beautiful set which captured a sci-fi lecture hall, and we had many other wonderful collaborators: Ilan Reichel, an animal movement specialist, Mia Theil Have who assisted me and went on tour with Kathryn when I could not come, Richard Hudson who did a beautiful costume design, Temujin Gill who taught Kathryn to tap dance, and many others. I deliberately chose a whole range of people who were not from the UK. The story of assimilation rang true for everyone working on the piece – even Kathryn herself is not English, she has a Greek and American passport.
After opening the piece at the Young Vic in 2009, we toured internationally over the next four years: Sydney, Melbourne, Athens, Peter Brook’s Bouffe du Nord in Paris, Istanbul, Tokyo, Taipei and New York. The audience reaction to Kathryn’s performance has been incredible. People have made comparisons to the fate of the Aborigines in Australia, while a Jewish audience in New York said that Kafka was talking about them – in each city we discovered that the piece resonated very differently.
It truly has been an exceptional journey and to present this piece in Manchester as part of our opening season is a real honour. To have got to know Kathryn over the past few years has been one of the most important encounters of my artistic life!
Kafka’s Monkey runs from Wed 17 – Sat 27 Jun. Tickets are available here, in person from Box Office or by calling 0161 200 1500.