Franz Kafka's Amerika novel, written between 1911 and 1914 and published posthumously by his friend and editor Max Brod in 1927, is one of Franz Kafka's three unfinished novels, along with "Das Schloss" and "Der Process". "The Prodigal" begins with 16-year-old Karl Rosmann from Prague entering New York harbor, where he spotted the "statue of the Goddess of Liberty, long since observed." "Her arm with the sword rose up as of late, and around her figure the free airs blew."
Will it be this sword that Karl Rosmann will end up shattering?
"The Prodigal" - a Bildungsroman? Kafka's hero encounters an America that does not allow him to ascend to the heights of humanistic manhood, but to descend into the darkness of modern life. The modern, promising paradise of America, the "New World," becomes the parable of an educational path that leaves no progressive development open to the learner.
The American Dream-a colorful but burst balloon? The nightmare of "a modern Sisyphus, forever rolling the rock of belonging in vain." Albert Camus
Directed by Willy Praml
With: Jakob Gail, Muawia Harb, Virginia Hartmann, Birgit Heuser, Elisabeth Marie Leistikow, Ibrahim Mahmoud, Anja Signitzer, Claudio Vilardo, Michael Weber
Text source and more information about this event: http://theaterwillypraml.de/kafka-merika-kafkas-amerikafragment-der-verschollene/
