Spielzeit 26.08. - 09.10.

Das Schloss

Drama based on the novel of the same name by Franz Kafka

World premiere

Director
Stage
Dramaturgy
lighting
Thomas Langguth
music
Tobias Schwencke, Florian Tippe
 
Choir
Aalto Kinderchor

What is the castle?
»It was late at night when K. arrived. The village was covered in thick snow. Of the castle mountain nothing could be seen, mist and darkness surrounded it, not even the faintest light indicated the great castle. K. stood for a long time on the wooden bridge leading to the village from the main road, looking up into the apparent emptiness.« (Franz Kafka, Das Schloß)

Das Schloß (The Castle), Kafka’s last novel, which he wrote throughout the year 1922, two years before his death, remains a fragment, one which breaks off in the middle of a sentence. What happens to surveyor K. therefore remains a mystery. The castle had summoned him and after a lengthy winter journey he arrived at his new place of work to find nobody expecting him. He begins to fight to be recognized. He does not hold back. K. tries many ways of reaching Count Westwest’s castle but he will not get there. At the same time he begins to have a life in the village, he becomes involved in love affairs, business and politics. He is in danger of losing himself, because who or what he represents for the others, those from the castle and from the village, remains uncertain and constantly shifting. Kafka does not resolve this conflict, he abandoned the novel shortly before its end. For us it remains an open and fruitful puzzle, because what is the castle? What does it stand for? Proposals and suggestions have extended from God and the world of our fathers through modern society as far as death itself. Does it really exist? The castle appropriates the reality of the village from the actions and relationships of the people, it is a system which flows through their bodies.

A co-production between the Ruhrtriennale and the Deutsches Theater Berlin.