With Joseph K being such a naturalistic character, it is easy for him to become lost in the foray of absurdity. It is important for me and for the play that the audience connect with Joseph K. He is the character whom they follow throughout the story; if there is no connection, the audience aren’t engaging with the piece. Me and Lucy sat down to discuss the sort of character we wanted our Joseph K to embody, and in what ways we wanted the audience to engage with him.
My main concern is trying to maintain a dramatic presence against such flamboyant characters that are found in the chorus, without slipping K into an unnatural demeanor. This starts mainly with the choices I make as an actor engaging with Joseph K. Bruce Miller states in The Scene Study Book (2010) that ‘actors must make choices for the characters they play, choices that get them closer to what their characters need’ (p. 146) my choices as Joseph K all lead to the conclusion of the play, where K’s emotional and physical capacity is exposed to the audience. Me and Lucy talked in depth about how we wanted our audience to react to K. We decided that the audience had to sympathise with K in order to come away from the play with any specific idea or feeling. If they fail to connect with K on any level then they merely fade away, just as the chorus do at the close of the show.
Throughout the course of the play K has internal lines which, on reading, Berkoff seems to intend as K’s internals thoughts. Me and Lucy thought it would be beneficial to explore these moments as asides; in the same way a Shakespearean or Restoration actor would engage with an audience to reveal his or her feelings, we decided that addressing the audience with K’s internal thoughts would generate an intimate response from an audience. They could share in K’s internal humors, ‘They look like tourists’ (Berkoff 1988, p. 14) and laugh with him, or share his fear. This intimacy is what forms the bond and stimulates the thoughts that generate throughout the piece; as the audience travel with K they will hopefully begin to contemplate their own trials and this only strengthens the bond k and the audience share. The main breakthrough for this came in act two of the play when K delivers a speech about preparing his case. The speech seems to be directed at a group of people who are assisting K in writing his defence. I thought that this moment should explore the intensity of K’s plight by sharing it with the audience, ‘we must banish from our minds any thought of my possible guilt. There is no such guilt.‘ (Berkoff 1988, p 49). The ‘we’ suggests that K and the audience are going to fight the law together. Lucy agreed with this choice suggesting me to find any other moments where I could strengthen the connection between audience and K.
Work Cited
Miller, B. (2010) The Scene Study Book: Roadmap To Success, Milwaukee: Limelight Editions Ltd.
Berkoff, S. (1988) The Trial, Metamorphosis, In The Penal Colony, London: Gurnsey Press co. Ltd.
I really enjoyed reading this blog post and I think the way in which you kept the audience sympathising throughout was a tribute to all the hard work you put it.
I wonder how the audience felt when they were invited to share the jokes with the chorus; for example when Mrs Grubach waits until you turn your head before leaving naturalistically. It would be interesting to know how torn some audience were between their laughter at the chorus and their joke at K against their sympathy for Joseph K.