A Report to an Academy by Franz Kafka – Directed by Danae Spilioti & performed by Antigoni Riga

A monkey who achieved to become human, stands before us and narrates his hard effort “which hardly ever happened before on earth alike”. It is the story of a violent, willful integration into the human culture. Captive in his narrow cage on a steamship, he seeks avidly for a remedy and finds it to the sad sight of human beings. “I didn’t desire freedom. Just a remedy”, repeats clarifying his position.

If I desired freedom I would have chosen to dive into the ocean taking the risks of drowning. Well, he decides to become human in order to escape from the cage. Forced by our norms, the lash of taming hits against his skin and erases the memory of his previous nature. Before our eyes the nature he used to be fights against the nature he obtained. Two fields emerge: one of them is the dark universe of the monkey, the wild gorilla, the illogical, the ocean, the freedom, and the other, the human, the bright, the logical, the explainable, the remedy. Within a logical, specified, explainable, safe world, what really survives as suppressed fragments of a formerly, illogical, non verbal nature?

Within the text, a logical quotation of non commented facts, the illogical component emerges, the one that “cannot be told with human words”, addressing along the course a second text as challenge. The thing that cannot be told. The thing that has been lost along the course of the monkey. The thing that is missing. Our monkey in the end has been trained to be calm, harmless, to have small demands, to be modest. He has been taught the behavior within the limits. He has settled now on in his position. Lying on his swing looks outside the window. The image of many co-centric cages appears tremendously. He is satisfied. He stares on us as we are looking on him.

In the line of the Franz Kafka Tribute, on Thursday 24th, Friday 25th & Saturday 26th of May 2012, those who attend the performance “A Report to an Academy” directed by Danae Spilioti can attend the performance “The Metamorphosis” directed by Savvas Stroumbos in the same day with the Reduced Ticket Price (€10) showing their ticket at the Foundation’s Box Offices.