RED PETER/Etcetera Theatre until 6 August 2019/Camden Fringe Festival
Heather Jeffery • Aug 03, 2019
‘This stage adaptation of Kafka’s A REPORT TO AN ACADEMY, about an ape escaping incarceration by becoming a man tells us much about ourselves … and is superbly acted and directed’ ★★★★.5
This stage adaptation of Franz Kafka’s A REPORT TO AN ACADEMY is a new translation directly from the German, and highlights the topics of animal rights, and culture shock. It is also a play about breaking taboos.
Red Peter is an ape, so named because he has a red scar on his cheek from a bullet wound which makes him easy to identify. Being brought to ‘civilisation’ from West Africa, Red Peter decides he will mimic and become a man to find his way out. It is not freedom he seeks, this is a human notion, but a way out from incarceration. After he masters human speech, he decides to embrace human society and he presents his report to an academy about his former life.
Denzil Barnes breaks a big taboo when he plays the role of an ape, but this is a very intelligent show, heart-breaking at times and thought provoking. Barnes’ physicality as the ape becoming a man is superbly performed with facial expressions that gives the inner life of the primate. Barnes must have been studying apes to give such a realistic portrayal.
One of the most impressive points of the show Is that it has a terrific sense of scale and conflict, internal and external. This extends to the use of the lectern at which Red Peter is speaking to the academy, which also becomes his tiny cage. It’s a well thought out production, with Korean director Chris Yun-Ward using simple means to tell a global story. What we learn about ourselves and about our own behaviour, such as Red Peter’s repulsion to spirit (liquor) which he must drink to become like a man, is illuminating.
Overall this is an entertaining, beautifully scripted and acted show which deserves a much wider audience.
Directed by Chris Yun-Ward
Performed by Denzil Barnes
Presented by Grid Theatre
RED PETER
Etcetera Theatre
265 Camden High Street, (above the Oxford Arms), Camden, London NW1 7BU
1 – 6 August 2019, 8.30pm
Reviewer Heather Jeffery is founder and Editor of London Pub Theatres Magazine: www.londonpubtheatres.com Twitter: @pubtheatres1 Email: hjwrites@aol.com
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