“Kafkaesque!” A Musical That Is As Hilarious As It Is, Well, Kafkaesque

Emily Bronte doesn’t have an acronym but Franz Kafka does and Kafkaesque! Directed by Ashley Brooke Monroe and now running at Theatre 154 has 90 jam packed minutes proving why. James Harvey’s script is a sharp run through of Kafka’s biggest hits as filtered through the modern moment. If his relentless digs at gen z culture grow a bit grating, well that’s all just part of the twisted world he paints. Cleverly crafted and brilliantly acted, Kafkaesque! is a campy delight that would either horrify Franz Kafka or make him endlessly proud.

So what exactly makes something Kafkaesque? As Harvey’s somewhat disaffected Franz Kafka points out “a lot of people call things “Kafkaesque” to sound smart and cultured without having any idea what it means,” a trend which he emphatically encourages. Merriam Webster defines Kafkaesque as “having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality”. In Harvey’s hands Kafka’s dour tone is transformed into hilarity, exposing the absurdity of life through laughs in addition to nightmares. The “complex, bizarre, and illogical” components come from both the content of Kafka’s original writings, and the way Harvey weaves them together into one artfully chaotic mega-arc. 

Josh Nasser, Emily Olcott, Alexandra Nader, Curry Whitmire, and James Harvey in Kafkaesque! © Nicolas Arauz

This overarching narrative centers around the everyman suburban Samsa family of Kafka’s most famous story, “The Metamorphosis”. Curry Whitmire plays the alienated son turned cockroach Gregor with piteous “why me?” charm. It is a nightmarish world indeed when your first thought upon waking up as a bug is to worry about your boss firing you! His zoomer sister Grete is played brilliantly by a scene stealing Alexandra Nader whose arc covers the events of “A Hunger Artist”. In one of the show’s most clever transformations this hunger artist is an aspiring influencer, ring light and all. Nader is consistently hilarious, but also gets one of the show’s most heartfelt moments (the closest we ever come to earnest pathos) in a duet with Kafka about the nature of making art. 

The duo’s parents, Karen and Michael, are played to archetypal perfection by Emily Olcott and John Nasser. Olcott’s cancellation leading to the events of “The Trial” is a cute idea if slightly less well explored then the other adaptations, but Nasser’s bureaucratic hell of a castle storming is quite effective. 

Alexandra Nader in Kafkaesque! © Nicolas Arauz

Don’t be fooled by the laughs though, the show does get into some dark territory. There’s a lot of talk of suicide for a piece so funny. As we neared the end I did wonder if these moments were being treated with an appropriate level of care, especially since there was no content warning and one of the deaths was an invention of the show, outside of Kafka’s original writing. But then it’s a big ask to include care when the brutality and carelessness of the world is a big aspect of Kafka’s, and consequently Kafkaesque!’s, worldview.

In the end we move on quickly from these moments to make way for the “vaguely uplifting mid-tempo pop-rock number” finale. It’s a dazzling ode to meaninglessness that ties together the many threads of this sprawling work perfectly. “What was the point of all that?” you may wonder as you leave the theater. Well, in this case the pointlessness is the point. It’s a flawlessly frustrating conclusion but thankfully one that sweetens the bite with so very many laughs along the way.