The Castle

Actually, the castle does not exist. In any case K., who arrives in the village on a dark winter’s night, only looks "up at what seemed to be a void", with no trace of the big castle. Nor is he actually a land surveyor, even though he is met by two assistants the next day who claim to have been in his service from time immemorial. K.'s reality has nothing to oppose this foreign world. So, what else to do but ask the lord of the castle, Count Westwest, for a residence permit, and to seek integration. A difficult task since no road leads to the castle, "but merely passed close to it before turning aside, as if on purpose, and although it moved no further away from the castle, it came no closer either." To this day there appear to be endless possible interpretations of this most famous fragment of a novel, which Kafka wrote in 1922 and which was published in 1926. Any narrational certainty becomes entangled in grotesque contradictions with each turning of the page. Absurd and comic elements are mixed with existential questions, mere assertions turn into real threats the next moment.

Hungarian director Viktor Bodo, who brilliantly staged Kafka’s »The Metamorphosis« as »Ich, das Ungeziefer« (I, the vermin) at the MalerSaal in the 2014-15 season, continues the artistic engagement with his all-time favourite author at the SchauSpielHaus.