KAFKA IN AMERICA—
AND LOST AT SEA

Striking visuals adrift in an overlong adaptation

Who isn’t familiar with Franz Kafka (1883–1924), the tormented Czech writer? Or The Metamorphosis, Kafka’s most notable tale chronicling Gregor Samsa’s angst when he wakes one morning to discover he’s transformed into a “monstrous vermin”?

While Kafka wrote a good deal more, he finished very little. He began three novels, none of which he ever got around to concluding. Literary scholars claim this was deliberate on Kafka’s part, so that his novels would continue without end. I don’t buy that for a NASCAR second. Kafka was just a lazy slug.

Der Verschollene (“The Missing”) was his first attempt at writing a novel (1911) and the first he left short-ended (1914). A pair of additional incomplete tomes would follow: in 1914, Der Process (“The Trial”), and in 1922, Das Schloss (“The Castle”). Each of the trio stops in its literary tracks at the brink of a major turning point, validating the classic literary maxim, “It’s easier to set them up than knock them down.”

Atwater’s Open Fist Theatre Company, in association with Circle X Theatre Company, is presenting a theatrical adaptation of Kafka’s first unfinished novel, which came to be known as Amerika or, The Man Who Disappeared, by playwright/director Dietrich Smith.

The tale follows the adventures of Karl Rossmann (Oqalile Tshetshe), a German youth newly arriving in the land of the free. Smith opens his show with a promising turn-of-the-century tableau of “huddled masses” watching reverently as their ship enters New York Harbor and, through a series of descending flats, the Statue of Liberty—bearing an upraised sword in place of her torch—slowly comes to tower over them.

It is a superb staged moment. The first and last.

Coordinated by scenic designer Frederica Nascimento, who has infused art (D. Morris, graphic designer, and Elizabeth Moore, drop artist) and animation (John R. Dilworth) with the traditional stage disciplines of lighting (Gavan Wyrick), sound (Gray Rydstrom), and costume design (A. Jeffrey Schoenberg), this production is encased in an inspired exterior shell.

The problem is that for all the shell’s luminosity, there’s no yolk inside.

Producers Amanda Weier and Tim Wright have delivered great stagecraft. But with a dramatis personae listing 46 characters attached to 16 very convoluted set changes (which the clever use of drop screens, in concert with well-executed stick-figure cartoons, helps to speed the audience in and out of), the result is still a running time dangerously close to three hours (with two intermissions). What was called for was a producer to approach Smith with a sharpened pair of industrial scissors and an explanation of how they operate.

Tshetshe has strong moments and engages with the material well—until the surplus of it entombs him.

The same can be said of Emma Burno, Jack Sharpe, Pat Towne, Elliott Moore, Maria Mastroyannis, and the rest of the dozen performers in the ensemble, none of whom can escape the burden placed on them by Smith, with a further impediment placed on some by a dialect coach who has bestowed them with British pantomime accents devoid of clarity.

In the end, this review takes on a theatrical rift akin to the old “For want of a nail” adage: The set is deserving of a better cast, the cast is deserving of a better play, the play is deserving of a better director, and the audience a better show.

There is a good deal of “good” in this production of Amerika or, The Man Who Disappeared, all of which gets swamped in the squall of its staging and sinks from sight beneath the lapping of a dawdling pace.

To quote Kafka: “Glub glub.”

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photos by Thomas Alleman

Amerika or, The Man Who Disappeared
Open Fist Theatre Company and Circle X Theatre Company
Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave. in Atwater Village
Fri at 7:30; Sat at 7; Sun at 2
ends on May 3, 2026
for tickets ($26–$45), call 323.882.6912 or visit Open Fist or Circle X Theatre

for more shows, visit Theatre in LA

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