Kafka's Ape
William Kentridge exhibition programme
Saturday 1 October 2022 6 - 7pm
The Benjamin West Lecture Theatre, Burlington Gardens, Royal Academy of Arts
£20 / £12 conc
Friends of the RA book first
The work of Franz Kafka is adapted for the stage in this poignant performance exploring identity in post-apartheid South Africa.
Kafka’s Ape is an adaptation of Franz Kafka’s short story A Report to an Academy. It takes a metaphorical view of South African society through the representation of an ‘evolving’ primate who is made to present a report on his attempts to mimic human nature.
Directed by Phala Ookeditse Phala and performed by Tony Bonani Miyambo, Kafka’s Ape is a rich adaptation of a profound and wide-ranging text combined with a powerful physical performance. Miyambo embodies the character of the ape and the anguish and oppression that he labours under.
While Kafka’s original story tests the notions of identity, assimilation, and survival, Phala and Miyambo’s adaptation ultimately reckons with the unending complexities of identity in the contemporary world. It is a performance that continuously returns to the key themes of otherness, inhumanity, alienation, dissociation, and the unbearable reality of not being at home in one’s own body.
Since its inception over a decade ago, Kafka’s Ape has travelled to countries across the globe and has been performed alongside a plethora of critical moments in recent history. The realities of xenophobia, racism, animal cruelty, genocide, and more have all been absorbed and grappled with by the play throughout its years of touring.
Developed in association with the Centre for the Less Good Idea.
Supported by Wendy Fisher and the A4 Arts Foundation
£20 / £12 conc
Friends of the RA book first
William Kentridge
William Kentridge
This autumn, William Kentridge stages his biggest UK exhibition, in a show spanning his 40-year career.
Visitors will find four-metre wide tapestries, his signature charcoal trees and flowers, and the breathtaking three-screen film, Notes Towards a Model Opera. Many pieces have never been seen before, and some have been made specially for our show and galleries.