The Trial

Belt Up Theatre bring their nightmarish and disorientating vision of Kafka's classic to the Southwark Playhouse.

A haunting theatrical incarnation lifts Kafka's words from the page and inhabits them in the labyrinthine world under London Bridge. Get lost alongside Josef K as he struggles to make sense of the nonsensical bureaucratic monster that preys on him.

It's half past eight and Josef K normally has his breakfast at half past eight. Yet today his world is twisted and deformed when he is arrested and dragged into the uncertain purgatory of the justice system. In a warped wonderland, K must make his way through this tentative world seeking help amongst a sinisterly peculiar freak show of characters. From the spider-like helping hand of Huld to the giddily incomprehensible Titorelli, K must attempt to weave a narrative through his vague destiny. Easier said than done in a world of absolute order without logic, punishment without crime, people without humanity.

An unsettling and disorientating journey through the eccentric, macabre and truly petrifying world of Kafka's novella, this production will leave you troubled by the lingering images that you catch glances of amongst this fast, furious and frightening representation of the red-tape nightmare.

Set to an original score of blues piano and drum and bass, The Trial will plunge you into a claustrophobic atmosphere and leave you at its mercy as Josef K hurtles towards his inexplicable fate.