The Trial (2010/2011)

"... Splendid Productions' reputation as THE touring theatre company is once again fully justified with their spellbinding adaptation of 'The Trial'"

Teaching Drama Magazine

"Splendid Productions lived up to their name by making Kafka hilarious and accessible without diluting his gravitas"

Bexley Times

“A really effective piece of theatre, both from a Brechtian and Berkovian perspective.”

Liselore Woltering, The Fallibroome Academy, Macclesfield

Splendid Productions' 'The Trial'
By Franz Kafka
Adapted by Ben Hales
Directed by Mal Smith, Matt Wilde and
Lucy Cuthbertson
Songs by Ben Hales
Design by Kerry Frampton

Josef K is an ordinary man doing ordinary work in an ordinary bank. He wakes up one ordinary morning to discover he is under arrest, but nobody seems prepared to tell him what he is accused of.

‘The Trial’ plunges the audience into a world of petty bureaucracy, inexplicable rules and legal dead-ends, following Josef K as he fights to defend himself against a law he thought was there to protect him.

With 'The Trial', we wanted to give the audience an experience that echoed that of Josef K. As soon as they arrive, three brisk and efficient clerks begin to 'process' them according to an unknown set of criteria, rewarding and punishing individuals in an arbitrary manner.

But how arbitrary is it? And how compliant can an audience (or a population) be made to be?