Behning 1 Cameron Behning Jessica Burstrem ENGL 109H March 18, 2013 Theater Choices A famous adage about

the stage goes, theater mimics life - theater is life. The great bard Shakespeare himself compared life to theater as well. All the world's a stage,A / And all the men and women merely players (Shakespeare 2.7.138-39) he stated in his comedy As You Like It. This comparison to stage mimicking life and life mimicking the stage is a constant them in all theater. The question then becomes, what happens when it is not life that theater mimics, but something else instead - such as a book? The Tucson theater company Rogue Theater did this, as the often do, in their production for Kafkas Monkey and Metamorphosis. These plays from the German author Franz Kafkas book A Report to the Academy and Metamorphosis respectively are exacting adaptions from their printed counter parts. These adaptions are in a sense too exact, too true to the text, and too identical to their source material. Because of their identical nature to their books, this set of plays suffered. They were made into narrated books instead of acted theater. Kafkas Monkey and the book A Report to an Academy in tail the life of a monkey by the name of red Peter. It follows him as he explains his transformation from monkey to man. Though the play technically started big exactly where the books started with Peter purporting to be Academy, the true beginning began even before the show opened. A pre-curtain skit was performed by Patty Gallagher acting as a monkey as if in a circus act. After ending a normal circus moneky

Behning 2 routine she then went to recite the famous Monologue to Yorick from Shakespeares tragedy Hamlet. After greeting the audience and normal preshow pleasantries, the show then officially began with the performance of Kafkas Monkey which was truly an extended monologue as performed by Patty Gallagher. During that she contorted her face and body into very apelike gestures. She truly became an eight who was acting as a man. As she almost literally recited the text from A Report to an Academy, she acted as a monkey periodically breaking out in exclamations and cries similar to as a monkey would have done. She detailed her life from the best of her ability from being captured as a monkey to her transformation into becoming a real human being. This adoption of Kafkas because book is actually a very appropriate. A Report to an Academy was written much like a speech because it literally intended to be read as speech given to a scientific academy counsel. The performances such was a very appropriate one; however, the acting methods and interpretations of Gallagher which were used during the performance caused some difficulties. At times the acting became very distracting. Though her outbreaks were necessary, they were not handled with the most taste. Her acting was very intense the entire time and only seem to get more intense. The only emotions which I felt were intense and more intense. For outcries is a monkey to screaming yelling and jumping only increased this feeling. Attention kept on building a building and building much like the tension in a piano wire. Her notes got higher and higher about to snap but never breaking, seemingly and continually increasing in volume pitch and severity. It was not that she literally got louder, but the play seemed to create a sound inside the mind. There was never that release of the tension, never the release of emotion. It made for a very exhausting experience that by the end had no affect. I found myself being completely numb to any message she was saying.

Behning 3 The one key aspect that needed to be added to the performance was this release. In theatre, this is most often achieved by a specific character that can act as a comic release. The role of the character is not truly vital to the plot, but vital to the story telling ability of the work. Because of the nature of how Kafkas Monkey is written, it would not make sense for there to be an additional character.

Behning 4 Work Cited Kafkas Monkey. By (Script writter). Dir. (Director Name). Perf.(Performers Names). Rouge Theater Company. Tucson, Arizona. (Performance date). Performance. Metamorphosis. By (Script writter). Dir. (Director Name). Perf.(Performers Names). Rouge Theater Company. Tucson, Arizona. (Performance date). Performance. Shakespeare, William. "As You Like It." Project Gutenberg. Google Inc., 26 Mar 2011. Web. 17 Mar 2013.