Spoken Word Performance on the 100th Anniversary of Franz Kafka’s Death Nico and the Navigators: “Post. Kafka”
A preview by Frauke Thiele
The Kafka year 2024 is drawing to a close. Just in time, the Berlin music theater group Nico and the Navigators has staged an evening centered on Franz Kafka’s famous Letter to His Father. The production weaves together Kafka’s text with György Kurtág’s musical Kafka Fragments. A spoken word performance in collaboration with Literaturhaus Berlin. What’s particularly interesting: Kafka is embodied by three women—singer Herdís Anna Jónasdóttir, actress Annedore Kleist, and violinist Elfa Rún Kristinsdóttir.
radio3 cultural reporter Frauke Thiele attended the final rehearsal of Post.Kafka at Villa Elisabeth shortly before the premiere.
[Atmospheric music fades in]
The three women wear loose trousers, their blouses casually tucked in, their ties coordinated in color. The overall look is reminiscent of 1920s aviator uniforms. Their hair is styled in eccentric updos, contrasting the ensemble. Lips painted red, eyes subtly accentuated. It all feels slightly absurd:
[Sound excerpt: text + music]
They perform Letter to His Father, accentuating the painful words with startled expressions, tightly clenched mouths, curious glances over the shoulder, or sharply synchronized movements to the jagged, angular music by György Kurtág—his Kafka Fragments for violin and soprano.
Nicola Hümpel is the director of Nico and the Navigators:
Hümpel: “I found it incredibly exciting to combine the fragments with the letter, because they really intensify each other. These are emotional moments—it’s music you can’t just listen to straight through because the sounds are truly painful, mirroring Kafka’s inner emotional state. And what’s great is, in the end, it feels like these two elements always belonged together.”
[Sound excerpt: text + music]
Hümpel: “What’s so powerful about the music is that it really captures the madness in him, the kind we know from his incredible writing—how his mind jumps between worlds. And pairing that with a very realistic text, one that is biographical and personal, really reveals both sides of him.”
[Sound excerpt: text + music]
Kafka wrote his Letter to His Father in 1919, in his early thirties, around the time he had once again planned to get married—only to cancel it again. In the letter, he meticulously dissects the reasons why he holds his father responsible for his inability to commit.
[Sound excerpt: text only]
Letter to His Father is a struggle to find clear words for the discomfort Kafka felt toward his father and the father’s expectations, which clashed so profoundly with his own—a timeless theme. After all, the title of the performance is Post.Kafka.
[Sound excerpt: music + text]
But not all of Kafka’s words are treated with solemn reverence. A sly smile, a twitch, a broad grin—and suddenly, it tips into the absurd…
[Sound excerpt: humor and irony]
Hümpel: “They don’t take themselves too seriously. And they realize, of course, that Kafka himself can be viewed critically—his emotions, his view of life can be ambiguous. And that’s something we can all relate to—everyone sees something of themselves in that. So it was important to me to bring a sense of lightness, wit, and irony to the piece.”
The stage is repeatedly engulfed in swirling clouds, as one of the performers carries a small fog machine—everything becomes blurry...
[Sound excerpt: dissolution]
Hümpel: “It’s very Kafkaesque. You’re shrouded in this fog of text and thoughts and Kurtág’s incredibly off-kilter music. You get lost in it. And that’s the feeling Kafka describes in the letter—he constantly talks about how he loses himself, how he dissolves.”
[Sound excerpt: music]
Nico and the Navigators will perform Post.Kafka for three nights starting today at Villa Elisabeth in Berlin-Mitte. Performances begin at 8 PM. Tickets are €15, reduced €10.
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