Take part in The Trial

When: From 5th March – 27th April 2013

Where: Part One takes place at Shoreditch Town Hall, EC1 and Part Two at The Mill Co. Project – Rose Lipman Community Centre, N1

£: 30 plus booking fee (tickets via www.barbican.org.uk or 020 7638 8891)

What is it?

A cast of forty stage this one-on-one, immersive, site specific experience, following Joseph K’s journey over multiple venues, and performed in two parts.

This immersive, large-scale, interactive story sees audience members follow Joseph K through the nooks and crannies of atmospheric East London settings as he comes to terms with his mysterious arrest.  Through one-on-one encounters the complex reality of Joseph’s situation emerges, culminating in a visit to the Department, a crumbling regime with a dark secret at its centre, provoking questions on the true value of identity, and how far we should go to defend it.  At the end of Part One, audience members make an appointment to continue their experience in Part Two at The Trial itself, with an atmosphere inspired by Kafka’s short story In The Penal Colony.

Theatre Director and Co Founder of RETZ, Felix Mortimer, was awarded a £30,000 bursary to develop his work and The Trial is the culmination of this funding and support.  This is not the first time RETZ has produced inventive quirky theatre.  Last year RETZ serialised Shakespeare’s The Tempest in an East London shop over six months.  Audience members returned each month to visit a different part of the magical island, eventually sailing away with Prospero back to his dukedom.

The production arrives as a controversial “Google for spies” is announced.  Raytheon’s Riot program mines social network data to track and predict the movement, relationships and activities of individuals, analysing “trillions of entities” from cyberspace for Government and corporate use.  Updating Kafka’s view that information is power, RETZ explore the value and preservation of identity in the internet era, when it can be easily bought, cloned or stolen.

Published in 1925, Franz Kafka’s The Trial tells the story of a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed to neither him nor the reader.

RETZ Artistic Director Felix Mortimer said: ”Kafka’s work has a vital relevance in 2013.  Combining The Trial and In the Penal Colony we want to question the faith we put in ourselves, others and the systems we create.  Kafka’s world’s, as opposed to Orwell or Huxley, places the individual at their heart, therefore it was natural to us in our production to cast you as its protagonist.”

More info: www.retz.co.uk/savejoseph