The Demonstration Room is an unforgiving, cold lecture theatre with hard wooden seats that are pitched in such a way that the audience looks down into the playing space. This venue is situated in Summerhall, previously the Royal Dick Veterinary college, which is rather an apt host for Kafka’s Ape, a stage adaptation of Franz Kafka’s short story, A Report to an Academy, in which the narrator, Red Peter, addresses an academic conference, detailing his former life as an ape.
Originally a master’s project, Phala Ookeditse adapted Kafka’s short story into this utterly devastating one man show. Red Peter, an ape who no longer identifies as an ape, recounts the last five years following his capture. When recounting his tale, Red Peter hides under the podium, and, in one of the most moving theatrical moments I have ever witnessed, the shadows of grief and grief cross Tony Miyambo’s (Red Peter) face the moment he realizes he has been shot twice. We follow Red Peter’s story into a cage aboard a ship where he befriends some of the humans on board and learns that the only way to free his physical self is to imitate his new friends. He speaks of how slowly he learnt from teacher after teacher, becoming more and more human, till the point that he is now no closer to being than ape than any of us in his audience.
The play asks difficult questions about humanity, freedom and our understanding of being, but does so with an empathetic and delicate hand. Miyambo’s physicality as Red Peter is magnificent, projecting the difficult and complicated internal struggle between his nature (the ape-ness) and the nurture (the humanness). His control in the moments where Red Peter seems to lose it only affirms Miyambo’s astounding ability and talent. At the time I watched this play, I was one of nine audience members – a crime to such a talent, but one often committed against smaller independent artists. Each of us were on our feet come the end of this tour du force. This masterpiece will sit with me for years to come, especially in moments of longing and despair.
Kafka’s Ape is on in Summerhall’s Demonstration room at 10:40 until 26 August
Buy tickets here
Image provided via Summerhall Press Release