Two Kafka Plays: Kafka's Dick and the Insurance Man [Paperback]

Alan Bennett (Author)

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About the Author

Alan Bennett first appeared on the stage in 1960 as one of the authors and performers of the revue 'Beyond the Fringe'. His stage plays include Forty Years On, Getting On, Habeas Corpus, The Old Country and The Lady in the Van, and he has written many television plays, notably A Day Out, Sunset Across the Bay, A Woman of No Importance and the series of monologues Talking Heads. An adaptation of his television play, An Englishman Abroad, was paired with A Question of Attribution in the double-bill Single Spies, first produced at the National Theatre in 1988. This was followed in 1990 by his adaptation of The Wind in the Willows and in 1991 by The Madness of George III. Alan Bennett is the author of the best-selling biography Writing Home, and the short novels The Clothes They Stood Up In, Father Father Burning Bright, The Lady in the Van and The Laying On of Hands.

Product Details

• Paperback: 156 pages
• Publisher: Faber & Faber (October 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0571147275
• ISBN-13: 978-0571147274
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 4.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,641,659 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Alan Bennett is a renowned playwright and essayist, a succession of whose plays have been staged at the Royal National Theatre and whose screenplay for The Madness of King George was nominated for an Academy Award. He made his first stage appearance with Beyond the Fringe and his latest play was The Lady in the Van with Maggie Smith. Episodes from his award-winning Talking Heads series have been shown on PBS. His first novel, The Clothes They Stood Up In, was published in 2000. He lives in London.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fantasia and dissection on the subject of Franz Kafka, April 2, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Two Kafka Plays: Kafka's Dick and the Insurance Man (Paperback)

The particular text of the two with which I am concerned is "Kafka's Dick." My reading of the text was in conjunction with a directing class production at the local university. At the time the literary vivisectionist aspects of this play touched rather close to home. Quite frankly, I was sick of picking nits and wanted so desperately to just *enjoy* a story. But he daily rape of dead authors in English classes mad that quite impossible. Why they were teaching Chekoslovakian authors in English lit I'll never know.

"Kafka's Dick" deals with just that subject in a rather surreal way. Franz Kafka and his friend and publisher Max Brod are brought back to life in the living room of a literary critic who just happens to be writing on the subject of Franz Kafka. Franz discovers unexpected fame and utter embarrasment at the thought of having his sexual organs bandied about in public. The author is lost in a great sea of literary criticism. The author's work is forgotten or only half remembered:

KAFKA: . . . A beetle.

BROD: Say again?

KAFKA: Not a cockroach. You said cockroach. It was a beetle.

BROD: Will you listen to this man. I make him world famous and he quibbles over entomology.

Franz is himself oblivious to it all:

SYDNEY: . . . What you're saying is he doesn't know he's Kafka.

BROD: He knows he's Kafka. He doesn't know he's KAFKA.

This makes for some truly fine comedy at the expense of authors, critics, publishers, and readers of fine literature. A bit of the humor, however, is a little Kafka-specific (which is to be expected, really). This might make the show suffer from the same intellectual inaccessability that it complains of in the world of literary criticism. Nevertheless, I found the text to be quite amusing having only read the standard required Kafka short stories. This was mostly due to it's truly bizarre nature. The play ends on an odd twist with Kafka in heaven:

(The music swells as GOD and CARMEN MIRANDA dance. Then it fades as KAFKA comes forward to the audience.)

KAFKA: I'll tell you something. Heaven is going to be hell.