Interview: Writer and Performer Jack Klaff and KAFKA at 59E59 Theaters

Kafka is now on stage at 59E59 Theaters running through June 29th. Directed by Colin Watkeys and produced by Twilight Theatre Co., writer and performer Jack Klaff portrays acclaimed author Franz Kafka’s friends, lovers, and critics - including Alan Bennett, Bertolt Brecht, Albert Camus, Samuel Beckett, Albert Einstein, among many others - to paint a mosaic of his life. Little-known details about Kafka, the man with the matchless imagination, are revealed in this bracing, off-kilter, always-surprising show.

Broadwayworld had the pleasure of interviewing Jack Klaff about his background, career, and Kafka at 59E59 Theaters.

Klaff’s recent stage work includes: Rhapsody in Blue – playing Ira Gershwin, Wolfit – playing Wolfit, Maggie and Ted – playing Prime Minister Edward Heath, Rivonia – playing South African activist Bram Fischer, Behan (Irish Cultural Centre and Lennon-Ono Hall, Liverpool) and Catastrophe (Zoom – with legendary South African actor John Kani). Productions at the Finborough Theatre include, most recently, Kafka, and, earlier, The Representative, Drama at Inish, Trilby, Nagging Doubt, But it Still Goes On and as a regular host for the Finborough Forum.

Theatrical works he has written and performed include The Cuddles Trilogy, Kafka, The Fifty Minute Hour, Bosom Buddies, and verses for The Shakespeare Revue (West End and International Tour).

He has written for The Guardian, The Independent, and Vogue, and has presented on BBC Radio, LBC, BBC Four TV, Discovery and Granada. He has rewritten his theatrical show Whole Shebang as a book, and he is also the author of Bluff Your Way in the Quantum Universe. Jack has held Visiting Professorships at Starlab – a science and technology think tank in Brussels – and at Princeton University.

Klaff has won two Fringe Firsts, a Summerhall Lustrum award for Heartstopping Moments, the Three Weeks Editors’ Award, the Seabiscuit Award for Science and Art, Two Sony Certificates for radio acting, and a Glasgow Herald Archangel statuette. He has been nominated for a Golden Rose Award at Montreux, and a Writers Guild Tinniswood Award for Radio Writing and he won BBC TV’s Jack Hargreaves Award for Innovative Use of TV Drama.

When did you first realize that you would have a career in theatre and entertainment?

I was brought up to love theater and entertainment but as a kid in South Africa I was an excited audience member rather than a participant. When I was a teenager my folks were told emphatically by a teacher that I had a real gift as a performer of poetry and especially Shakespeare. Quite a few teachers said I should be an actor and I used to have a jokey comeback:  No my Dad wants me to be a doctor. In fact I did an initial law degree. But, still a teenager, I was given a huge rôle in a modern play on stage. I was booked as a professional to do a range of radio plays. And did some movie work. My Dad died and we were not especially well-off but I bought a plane ticket, auditioned for a British drama school, got in and instead of being a civil rights lawyer I pursued Justice in a different way through Storytelling. 

Our readers would love to know about your professional training and if you have had particular mentors.

After my Law studies I trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Your readers will have heard of people who went there, from Gene Wilder to Dan Day-Lewis and beyond. The principal of that school, Nat Brenner, was a great man. Also, readers may have heard of Athol Fugard in whose theatre I worked in Cape Town South Africa. They may not have heard of Peter Dews who did have some Tony successes. He taught me a lot about Shakespeare. Donald Howarth was an unsung hero who worked at the Royal Court and promoted a lot of work which was hugely popular in London, New York and around the world. Donald influenced my writing a great deal. The truth is though that I have also been influenced by all my reading, experiencing works of art, watching, listening, observing and in discussions with other people. I do steal from the very best people. I should mention for instance that I have four times been a Visiting Professor at Princeton, where my office has been near those of Joyce Carol Oates, Paul Muldoon, Edmund White and others. No slouches. And don’t forget the students and youthful artists. For decades my best and most helpful and profound mentors have been young people and especially children, my own offspring and others in the countries I have been to. 

You have impressive and varied credits!  How do you balance all of these opportunities?

Much of the balancing that I do is about time and money. I can write sometimes while I’m filming and during the days while I’m performing, but during rehearsals I have to focus completely on my acting. Also I balance work that I myself initiate with projects that I am offered, that come to me. Moreover it’s often the case that I shall start a project in order to swing away from what I’ve just done. I’m in a heavy drama. Go for a comedy next. Something small scale and personal. A piece that has a vast historical sweep may follow it. This year so far I’ve been in the TV gangster drama MobLand, a sci fi movie - Megalopolis Z, a musical about the Gershwin brothers, read an audiobook and played Peter Sellers in a radio play. I’ve also written for and overseen a book about a noted epidemiologist who tells us about AIDS and a range of other diseases. He was part of a team in the 1960s that discovered and named the Coronavirus. That’s how my life is and has been for many years.

Tell us a little about the team that is bringing Kafka to 59E59 Theaters.

Val Day the Artistic Director 59E59 Theaters saw the show, Kafka, in London. And booked it. For which I am boundlessly grateful. Margarett Perry, the noted director and artistic director of Twilight Theater, agreed to produce the show here. I'm hugely grateful for that, too, for Margarett’s taste and energy and perceptions and firm, kind navigation from afar and now here in the big city. Jen Leno has done a wonderful job designing the lighting. Brian Dykstra has offered priceless advice to do with the staging - even before he has seen the show. And Olivia Fletcher is running the whole thing from the booth, coping with all the lighting and sound cues and an extremely wayward and ungovernable artist. I do a fair amount of ad libbing, riffing and improvising and Olivia calmly deals with it all, patiently, with great grace, care, perfect professionalism and massive supportiveness. 

What are some of the challenges of your performance in Kafka?

So far tickets have been selling well I’m happy to say. Really well so far in fact. But at this time of course it is a challenge to let people know about the work and encourage them to buy tickets and to let them know that the material is far from forbidding. It’s funny and engaging and above all it is important. I’m really keen for young people to see the show. Kafka has always been a writer and thinker who matters to young people. The question is not at all a bad question, but truly I don’t generally see the things I am doing with the show as all that challenging, really. It is such good fun being in New York and finding ways of engaging with people here. I have been looking for opportunities to calibrate the performance. Modulate it. And I’ve also been keen for the material to be accessible. Plus all the other things that I believe a theatre piece needs. I’m doing my damnedest in every way to make it the best show it can be. That is challenging I suppose but it’s vastly enjoyable and worth it. 

What would you like audiences to know about the show?

That Kafka used to laugh his head off when he read his own work aloud. That along with the power and intensity of his work there are huge reserves of humour. Kafka scholars today are saying that Kafka and Larry David are similar. Pretty pretty similar. Also the reason I created this piece originally is that I discovered Kafka’s love for the theatre. And I learned the fact that he produced a series of One Man Shows. Often an artist performing a one person show is saying, Look at Me. In my work I am saying, Look at This. He is still the presiding genius of today’s storytelling. There’s no other author who comes close to his deep understanding of Power. In Kafka we have before us the modern mind. He is all of us. Around the world people have said to me in different ways that we are all living to prove Kafka right. 

Can you share with us any of your future plans?

Immediately after this New York run I shall be visiting Gibraltar for a performance and also to find out where my great-grandfather and great-grandmother briefly lived and worked. My grandmother became a virtuoso violin player there. Then they moved further south to sunny South Africa. I have also been commissioned to create two other solo shows, one about my extensive Shakespearean work and one about the connection between my time as an officer in the South African army and writers about war including Homer, Caesar, Tolstoy and America’s own Martha Gellhorn. I knew Ms Gellhorn slightly. I have one other, larger writing project coming up, since the other works are more or less written. I don’t mention screen work for which I’ve been pencilled. I believe such projects are happening when I’m on set and the cameras are rolling and not before.

Anything else, absolutely anything you want BWW readers to know.

I was in the original Star Wars movie. Most recently I worked with Emily Blunt on a series called The English. I’m incredibly charming and witty and fun. And modest.  I love stories. Telling them and mainly listening to people. And I love love love love love New York. So many connections with the people from here and the traditions and the literature and just all of it. I want your readers to know that I want to see them at the show and I want to say Hi and talk and exchange ideas and bolster our proverbial Special Relationship.

Follow Jack Klaff on Facebook and on Instagram @jackklaff. 

59E59 Theaters is located at 59 East 59th Street (between Madison and Park Avenues).