America

At a certain point, there is no return.
This point has to be reached.

Franz Kafka’s "never-ending story" tells the adventurous, then nightmarish, turn of events in the life of a 16-year-old involuntary exile. Sent away by his parents on an overseas crossing, Karl Roßmann is taken in on arrival by a rich uncle and introduced into a new world of unlimited possibilities. But then, in an astonishing and irrevocable way, the same uncle casts him out. Abandoned, Karl is exploited by crooks and is at the mercy of authoritarian superiors working in inscrutable systems. He also faces the demands of overbearing women: unpredictable or needy daughters, maternal cooks and despotic singers. He perceives his life as one huge contradiction, as if he were subject to a series of endless tests that he can neither understand nor pass. His scope for action becomes more and more restricted.

In a reversal of the American dream and its promise of happiness and freedom, Kafka’s unfinished novel raises existential questions about being exposed in a world in which the individual seems increasingly foreign to himself. Dušan David Pařízek’s production is a story of arbitrariness, the loss of binding values ​​– and the desire for arrival and salvation in another world.