Amerika / Der Verschollene

“Der Verschollene” describes class relations in a capitalist society like no other text by Kafka. The 16-year-old Karl Roßmann, who is cast out by his family and sent to America, constantly has to assert himself and always in new, different social structures. The technocratic regime of his businessman uncle in a skyscraper high above New York, the realities of two casual labourers in the street, the overworked bellboys in a hotel, a cramped shared apartment in an artistic milieu – all these play a parlour game of power and powerlessness, conformity and rebellion. The best cards are dealt to the proprietary classes who prey on those weaker than them. But it is precisely these outcasts and lost people who refuse to forsake their futures and continue to survive inventively as masters of the art of living.

Charlotte Sprenger creates subtle, musical, playful evenings with an ensemble, including at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg. Now, after bringing the Fassbinder film “Die dritte Generation” (The Third Generation) to the stage as the Otto Falckenberg School’s 2022 graduation production, she is presenting her first major work at the Münchner Kammerspiele.

“Today’s feeling of powerlessness arises from the fact that we are aware of the state of the world and yet we still follow rules that we did not make and often do not understand, let alone approve of. The visionary Kafka revealed this to us 100 years ago in his unfinished novel.”

– Charlotte Sprenger, director