Kafka’s Ape:Based on Franz Kafka’s “A Report for an Academy”

After Espace Knox, lauded show tours to schools and Maisons de la Culture (Then goes international—to Beijing and Tokyo!)

Infinithéâtre presents

Kafka’s Ape Limited-run Montreal area tour, now including performances in French

Various dates, Feb. 8-27

Adapted and Directed by Guy Sprung & Starring Howard Rosenstein

See for the first time or re-live the experience of this tour de force performance!

Please click to see an excerpt from the original performance: Kafka’s Ape Please click to see a brief interview with actor Howard Rosenstein: bit.ly/2We8Igs

Montreal, January 2019– Infinithéâtre’s is proudly taking its critically acclaimed Kafka’s Ape on tour, with performances in the Montreal area, Morin Heights and John Abbott College, before heading to Beijing and Tokyo in April. Powerhouse Howard Rosenstein is riveting in adaptor/director Guy Sprung’s captivating play. This mesmerizing production plays February 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 27 and will be performed in both English and in French. A number of free performances are available as part of Le Conseil des arts de Montréal en tournée program. (see various times and venues below)

“I deliberately don’t use the word ‘freedom’. ‘Freedom’ is a powerfully seductive word which your so-called civilized world uses very cleverly, very effectively, to entrap and occupy whole continents.” – Redpeter

Based on Franz Kafka’s short story “A Report for an Academy” (1917) and adapted by Sprung from the original German, Kafka’s Ape upends the notion of civilization and what it means to be human in a world of routinized inhumanity. The show is an unnerving satire on ‘otherness’ and the compounding growth of private military companies. Fueled by bloodlust and alcohol, Rosenstein stars as keynote speaker and primate, Mr. Redpeter, in a theatrical tour-de-force performance. This classic tale of freedom, power and alienation is more current than ever.

Captured on the Gold Coast and imprisoned in a cage, Redpeter’s only escape route is to become a walking, talking, spitting, hard-drinking member of the ‘peace industry’; the entrepreneurial world of mercenary soldiers that is one of the biggest growth industries of the 21^st century. In detailing the journey of his enforced evolution from apedom to humanhood, Mr. Redpeter is a living embodiment of the irony that perhaps now he is more animal than he ever was as an ape. Witness a human become an ape become a human before your very eyes… 

Franz Kafka (1883-1924) is widely celebrated as one of the most important writers of the 20th century. Written during the darkest hours of the Great War, Kafka’s central thesis in his satire on forced assimilation – that other animals have a dignity and a respect for Mother Nature and their own species that Homo sapiens has lost – has here been nudged into modern day. From director Guy Sprung, “When Kafka first wrote this short story, millions of human beings were coerced into an orgy of killing each other, proving Homo sapiens to be vastly superior to gorillas and chimpanzees when it came to mass murder and genocide. Ironically, one of the largest of the private military corporations doing business with the American government today is called Academi, formerly known as Blackwater. The company is regularly in the headlines. In a sense, it still is a report for an Academy.” Queries Sprung, “Was Kafka able to see into the future?”

Performed over 100 times to critical acclaim, Kafka’s Ape is one of Infinithéâtre’s most successful plays, seen in Montreal, Toronto, New York, Stratford and Edinburgh

The creative team behind Rosenstein’s transformation is Vladimir Alexandru Cara for the creature’s make-up design; original lighting designer Eric Mongerson; original sound and video designer Nikita U; and movement coaches Anana Rydvald and Zach Fraser. Kate Hagemayer is the stage manager.

For more information on Kafka’s Ape and how to get tickets: www.infinitheatre.com/plays.php?play=40 or call 514- 987-1774 ext. 104

Tour Schedule February and April 2019 (times/prices vary):

• Fri. Feb. 8–Sun. Feb. 10, Espace Knox – 6215 ave Godfrey, NDG

• Tues. Feb. 12, John Abbott College – Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue

• Fri. Feb. 15–Sun. Feb. 17, Theatre Morin Heights– 27 Rue Bellevue, Morin-Heights, J0R 1H0

• (en français) Tues. Feb. 19 & Wed. Feb. 20, Maison de la culture Frontenac– 2550 Ontario Street (Free)

• (en français) Wed. Feb. 27, Maison de la culture du Plateau Mont-Royal– 465 Ave. du Mont-Royal Est (Free)

• April 8–13, Theatre X – Tokyo, Japan

• April 15–25, Qinglan Theatre– Beijing, China

Infinithéâtre’s mission is to develop, produce and broker new Québec theatre that is as entertaining as it is relevant, beginning with the belief that live theatre is an essential part of society’s democratic discourse and that great theatre speaks to and about its own community. Kafka’s Ape on tour is generously supported by: Season sponsors CN and Hydro-Québec; and Canada Council for the Arts, CALQ, Conseil des arts de Montréal, Azrieli Foundation, Zeller Family Foundation and Muse Entertainment.