A reading of Josephine the Songstress or The Mouse Folk by Jane Taylor is one of the final performances of the programme. The short story was the very last written by Kafka before he died, and is read by Taylor alongside a simple yet affecting video projection. The relationship between performer and audience, the presence and subsequent rippling effects of art in the world, and the notions of value, interpretation and the human condition are all present in the reading of Kafka’s story, sensitively delivered by Taylor.

A Kafka Moment is a mini-season of select works that were created or performed at The Centre for the Less Good Idea, and prompted by the writings of Franz Kafka.

Taking place at The Centre in April 2021 and leveraged off of an invitation of Kafka's Ape by the University of Toronto, Canada and the University of Western Cape, the mini-season was spread across two evenings, each featuring a unique programme of performances, staged for a limited live audience and live-streamed for free on The Centre’s YouTube channel.

Performers included Ameera Patel, Clare Loveday, Bongile Gorata Lecoge-Zulu, Jane Taylor, Antony Coleman, Sue Pam-Grant, Kevin Smith, Michael Mazibuko, Dan Selsick and Tony Bonani Miyambo.

Using the comical, grotesque, existential, and frighteningly prophetic writings of Kafka as a springboard, the performances that make up A Kafka Moment are at once experimental and macabre, playful and surreal. At the core of each programme is an attempt at puzzling out the nature of the short-form on stage – the activity of reading aloud, the embodiment of the short story in the performer, or the testing of new ideas through hybrid analogue and digital forms.

– David Mann

CREDITS:

READING BY | Jane Taylor
TEXT | Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk by Franz Kafka
STAGE MANAGERS | Dimakatso Motholo & Nthabiseng Malaka