The work The Burrow, by Franz Kafka, was presented by Athens Festival at Building E theatre, Peiraios 260, in Athens, on 11 and 12 July 2013.

Translation: Vicky Georgiadou

Director: Vicky Georgiadou

Dramaturgy: Vicky Georgiadou, Maria Kallimani

Assistant director: Genovefa Zagga

Set/costume design: Heike Schuppelius

Lighting designer: Melina Mascha

Music and sound design: Costas Andreou

Actress: Maria Kallimani

A building that traps

A creature that has the external characteristics of an animal but eminently human way of thinking has imposed upon itself a subterranean exile in a perfectly constructed building, designed to offer security and peace. Isolated and self-sufficient, it lives in conditions of absolute solitude and silence, methodical actions and voluntary restrictions. It is happy and confident until the noises and the possible existence of an intruder disturbs its peaceful way of living.

Kafka’s creature realizes that the building is not superior to the unpredictability of reality. Its fortress becomes a trap of confinement and surveillance, the good of peace is lost instantly, the feeling of safety collapses, the perfection of the building does not exist any more and the creature loses its self-control and its confidence. It is lost in the fear of the possible existence of an army of small enemies or of a monstrous enemy that comes to trample its property. Its clear way of thinking surrenders itself to absurdity and persecutory delusions. Its methodic way of acting vanishes in spasmodic actions, its dignity in barbarism and the frenzy of an insatiable hatred and its confidence in terror.

The approaching intruder encircles the existence, the soul and the mind of the owner of the building. The legentary confict never takes place as Kafka’s text is saved mutilated and so the existing text leaves all possibilities open.

With cynical sensitivity and deep knowledge of the thin line that separates the tragic of the ridiculous, Kafka exposes the limited limits of human nature. With a combination of humor and terror, he accepts the fact that security and certainty are things that cannot be achieved within the limits of the unpredictable real and living world.