Prague Honours Franz Kafka with 12ft Sculpture

4 December 2003
Press Association, UK

The city of Prague paid tribute to its most renowned literary son today, unveiling a monument to Franz Kafka. The 12ft tall bronze sculpture, a walking headless figure with Kafka sitting on the shoulders, was created by a Czech artist Jaroslav Rona.
The sculpture was inspired by Kafka’s work, especially the story “Description of a Struggle.”

The monument was erected in a tiny park between the Spanish Synagogue and the Church of the Holy Spirit, on the border of Prague’s Jewish district in a place that symbolises the city’s religious and cultural diversity.
“It’s an extraordinary unique day for both Franz Kafka and the capital, Prague,” Prague Mayor Pavel Bem told a crowd of several hundred people who had gathered in the cold, grey evening to watch the ceremony. “Today we redeem a debt we owe our history and one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.”
The crowd was served bread, pate, pickled cucumbers and Riesling wine.
About a dozen young men attending the ceremony wore black suits, ties and hats – the apparel Kafka wore.
Kafka was born 120 years ago to a Jewish German speaking family in Prague, which at the time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1906, he received a law degree at the city’s German University, and later worked for two insurance companies. He wrote in the evenings, but very little of his writings were published during his lifetime. One of his masterpieces, The Metamorphosis, is an exception.
Critical of his own work, Kafka requested that his manuscripts be destroyed after his death. A friend, Max Brod, instead published them, including The Trial and The Castle, novels that made Kafka the city’s most renowned literary symbol and one of the most influential writers of the last century.
The monument was erected by the Franz Kafka Society, which was founded shortly after the collapse of communism in 1989 to promote the legacy of Kafka and other German and Jewish writers from Prague.

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The Great Conjurer

October 21, 2006 – November 4, 2006
Kirk Theatre
New York City

Web site:
http://www.fluid-motion.org

Fluid Motion Theater & Film presents the world premiere of The Great Conjurer.

Drawn loosely from Franz Kafka’s art and life, The Great Conjurer depicts the struggle of “K,” a character forced to choose between a life that his parents wanted him to live—career, marriage, security—and the art that wanted to have life. Featuring a multi-ethnic cast, this new play, commissioned and produced by Fluid Motion Theater & Film, is based in truth, but tweaks the facts to suit the art of fiction, to become a universal story about beauty, love, and sacrifice in the pursuit of something great.

A new play by Christine Simpson
Directed by Kevin Bartlett
Produced by Michelle Chen

The Kirk Theatre at Theatre Row Studios
410 W 42nd Street, btw 9th & 10th Avenues
(A, C, E, 1, 2, 3 to 42nd Street)

October 21 – November 4, 2006
8 PM Tuesday - Sunday
3 PM Matinee on 10/28 and 11/4
(Preview on 10/20)

Tickets available in person at the Theatre Row Box Office, by phone at 212-279-4200, and online at TicketCentral.com.

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