This is a reflection of my experience playing Joseph K. My idea of this man has changed drastically since February (see previous post). Joseph K is the Everyman, he is a business man whose life is stuck in a monotonous rut. The course of the play is about his journey to defend his name. However, post-show, it feels like there is more. There is a depth to Joseph K that I could have never touched on at the start of the process. Now, The Trial is more about the degradation of Joseph K and his sanity; as opposed to him finding out his crime.
Now, at the close of the show, I see him as an empty shell. A man used to inhabit his body but that man has become so beaten and destroyed by the journey he has taken that he is defeated. I felt the final speech by K in the play summed up the transition that occurs; from man, to dog of the law.
‘There must be some arguments in my favour that have been overlooked. Wait! Where is my judge? Whom I have never seen. Where is the highest court, which I have never entered? Will someone help me? I hold out my hands. Like…a…dog.’
(Berkoff 1988, p. 69)
By the end of the play, K has become this dog of the law. Berkoff implements the transition in those final lines; K starts arguing against his accusers until succumbing to the system. He deteriorates to the point of helplessness. For me I had little pity for K at the start of this process, but over the course of the three months, I began to grow this sense of sympathy for him. This pity changed the delivery of those last few lines for me. It was no longer a man crying for help. This man needed help or he would reach his destruction.
The loneliness K feels at the close of the play was accentuated by the lack of chorus. For the first time they left the space and left K pleading to the audience. The lines above aren’t the lines I actually spoke, for me what I was saying was what I felt Joseph K would be saying, only on writing this post have I realised that I was incorrect. The holding out of K’s hands was to the audience and only them, for they were the only ones remaining to witness this end. The end of what is implied to be this man’s life.
Work Cited.
Berkoff, S. (1988) The Trial, Metamorphosis, In The Penal Colony, London: Gurnsey Press co. Ltd.
An interesting approach to the character of K, throughout the process it has also been clearer to me that this character of k is a representation of an ‘everyday man’ and we significantly see this within the small moments in the trial where he is left alone on a bare stage. Great portrayal of k!
Great Interpretation of Joseph K throughout. I’ve thouroughly enjoyed watching your process from the beginning to now and I think you have grasped exactly what I was going for! I couldn’t have put this better myself!