Adaptation of Kafka’s The Trial at Shoreditch Town Hall – review

Stage production of Kafka's The Trial at Shoreditch Town Hall

If you’ve ever been confused by the meaning of the term ‘Kafkaesque’, RETZ’s production of The Trial is sure to provide some clarity.

The immersive theatre production, starting at Shoreditch Town Hall and ending who knows where, is based on two of Kafka’s works: the title novel and the short story, ‘In the Penal Colony’.

Ideas of epic bureaucracy, anxiety and alienation have all been thrown around in relation to Kafka, and the medium of immersive theatre forces this all upon you – even more so than when reading the text.

Upon arrival at the ‘Department for Digital Privacy’ for my pre-trial hearing, I am asked for various contact details. I am then pulled off the street by a counterterrorism officer. The closest I get to learning the details of my crime is the accusation that my online presence is “of no use to society”.

The audience is only united once – in the waiting room for their pre-trial hearings. The rest is a series of one-on-one confrontations – with a bitchy receptionist sporting an angular bob, the counter terrorism official who sends me down the road to a solicitor who abuses his staff verbally (“BLOCH! You fool!”) and sexually (his secretary gets a spank). He mocks my silly hat, and reprimands me for carrying around a bag of hangers.

And this is all very comical. Until you meet Joseph K, The Trial’s protagonist, cowering in the corner of an empty car garage, shaking with fear. He shines a light on a wall and I find my own name written there in chalk. He crosses it off. When the guards come to inject his neck with a lethal serum, I am helplessly sitting in the middle of it all, doing nothing.

Then I’m ushered out onto the street by an undertaker or something similar. He recommends the Howl at the Moon pub down the road, where I open the door onto a bunch of drunk guys doing karaoke.

The Trial is at Shoreditch Town Hall until 27 April.
It continues with In the Penal Colony at The Rose Lipman Building until 27 April.

Shoreditch Town Hall, 380 Old Street EC1V 9LT
The Rose Lipman Building, 43 De Beauvoir Road N1 5SQ