Review: REPORT TO AN ACADEMY, Old Red Lion Theatre

Many interpretations have been given to Franz Kafka's novella A Report to an Academy, with academics taking different roads. Published in 1917, it sees an ape, trapped and abused by humans, learning their behaviour not out of desire to assimilate, but to survive. The fact that it's the work of a German-speaking Czech born to a Jewish family in Prague, written in the middle of the First World War, certainly carries specific implications.

Captured during a hunting expedition in West Africa and shipped to Europe, Red Peter starts to mimic his human gaolers in an attempt to escape his fate. From studying the habits of the ship's crew to learning to drink alcohol as a bonding method and later choosing a life of performance, he effectively evolves from animal to cognitive being.

He is now detailing his journey from the African forest to the European stages at the Scientific Academy, stressing how his voluntary transformation was, in essence, born out of hatred for those he was imitating. Concluding, he explains his affliction: he's come so far from his "apish past" that he can no longer relate to it. He actually enjoys being human.

German director Gabriele Jakobi's adaptation of this philosophical allegory is anaemic and inexplicably depoliticised. In its state of abstention and lack of a decisive mission statement, it makes very little impact. Red Peter tells his story to the "members of the academy" - the audience - in a rather immobile address by actor Robert McNamara.

The abominable conditions of his jailing are described coolly next to the ambivalent approach of the seamen, who are amazed at his intelligent reactions and push him to his limits. McNamara plays with the tonal modulation of his delivery, threatening in its quiet whispers and loud in his accusations, but lack emphasis in their meaning.

His recriminations are flat reproaches to the arbitrary human cruelty he was forced to endure. He is more spiteful than emotive, but even then he gives a bland and passive account. Which is shocking, given the original material.

We feel nothing for Red Peter. The ill-fitting suit; the large, unfashionable tie; the crumpled hat; the bamboo walking stick that aids a robotic-looking limp underneath a circus banner with the title; they're all futile accessories to an ultimately uninteresting and detached story.

Running at barely 40 minutes, the debasement and gruelling discipline Red Peter subjects himself to, unfortunately, don't carry any weight. Kafka's novella is a fascinating and inherently political piece of literature, but this adaptation doesn't do any justice to its cultural relevance. And don't get me started on that chimpanzee bark that seizes McNamara.

Report to an Academy runs at the Old Red Lion Theatre until 30 July.

Photo credit: J. Yi Photography