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Kafka's Monkey
‘Esteemed members of the Academy! You have done me the great honour of inviting me to give you an account of my former life as an ape.’
Imprisoned in a cage and desperate to escape, Kafka's monkey reveals his journey to become a walking, talking, spitting, smoking, hard-drinking man of the stage. Based on the short story A Report to an Academy by Franz Kafka, this new adaptation is by acclaimed writer Colin Teevan. Kafka's Monkey was performed to critical acclaim at the Young Vic Theatre in Spring 2009, and will return from the 19th May to 11th June 2011.
Imprisoned in a cage and desperate to escape, Kafka's monkey reveals his journey to become a walking, talking, spitting, smoking, hard-drinking man of the stage. Based on the short story A Report to an Academy by Franz Kafka, this new adaptation is by acclaimed writer Colin Teevan. Kafka's Monkey was performed to critical acclaim at the Young Vic Theatre in Spring 2009, and will return from the 19th May to 11th June 2011.
96 pages, Paperback
First published June 21, 2012
1 person is currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Franz Kafka
3,225 books38.5k followersPrague-born writer Franz Kafka wrote in German, and his stories, such as "
The Metamorphosis
" (1916), and posthumously published novels, including
The Trial
(1925), concern troubled individuals in a nightmarishly impersonal world.
Jewish middle-class family of this major fiction writer of the 20th century spoke German. People consider his unique body of much incomplete writing, mainly published posthumously, among the most influential in European literature.
His stories include "The Metamorphosis" (1912) and " In the Penal Colony " (1914), whereas his posthumous novels include The Trial (1925), The Castle (1926) and Amerika (1927).
Despite first language, Kafka also spoke fluent Czech. Later, Kafka acquired some knowledge of the French language and culture from Flaubert, one of his favorite authors.
Kafka first studied chemistry at the Charles-Ferdinand University of Prague but after two weeks switched to law. This study offered a range of career possibilities, which pleased his father, and required a longer course of study that gave Kafka time to take classes in German studies and art history. At the university, he joined a student club, named Lese- und Redehalle der Deutschen Studenten, which organized literary events, readings, and other activities. In the end of his first year of studies, he met Max Brod, a close friend of his throughout his life, together with the journalist Felix Weltsch, who also studied law. Kafka obtained the degree of doctor of law on 18 June 1906 and performed an obligatory year of unpaid service as law clerk for the civil and criminal courts.
Writing of Kafka attracted little attention before his death. During his lifetime, he published only a few short stories and never finished any of his novels except the very short "The Metamorphosis." Kafka wrote to Max Brod, his friend and literary executor: "Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me ... in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others'), sketches, and so on, [is] to be burned unread." Brod told Kafka that he intended not to honor these wishes, but Kafka, so knowing, nevertheless consequently gave these directions specifically to Brod, who, so reasoning, overrode these wishes. Brod in fact oversaw the publication of most of work of Kafka in his possession; these works quickly began to attract attention and high critical regard.
Max Brod encountered significant difficulty in compiling notebooks of Kafka into any chronological order as Kafka started writing in the middle of notebooks, from the last towards the first, et cetera.
Kafka wrote all his published works in German except several letters in Czech to Milena Jesenská.
Jewish middle-class family of this major fiction writer of the 20th century spoke German. People consider his unique body of much incomplete writing, mainly published posthumously, among the most influential in European literature.
His stories include "The Metamorphosis" (1912) and " In the Penal Colony " (1914), whereas his posthumous novels include The Trial (1925), The Castle (1926) and Amerika (1927).
Despite first language, Kafka also spoke fluent Czech. Later, Kafka acquired some knowledge of the French language and culture from Flaubert, one of his favorite authors.
Kafka first studied chemistry at the Charles-Ferdinand University of Prague but after two weeks switched to law. This study offered a range of career possibilities, which pleased his father, and required a longer course of study that gave Kafka time to take classes in German studies and art history. At the university, he joined a student club, named Lese- und Redehalle der Deutschen Studenten, which organized literary events, readings, and other activities. In the end of his first year of studies, he met Max Brod, a close friend of his throughout his life, together with the journalist Felix Weltsch, who also studied law. Kafka obtained the degree of doctor of law on 18 June 1906 and performed an obligatory year of unpaid service as law clerk for the civil and criminal courts.
Writing of Kafka attracted little attention before his death. During his lifetime, he published only a few short stories and never finished any of his novels except the very short "The Metamorphosis." Kafka wrote to Max Brod, his friend and literary executor: "Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me ... in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others'), sketches, and so on, [is] to be burned unread." Brod told Kafka that he intended not to honor these wishes, but Kafka, so knowing, nevertheless consequently gave these directions specifically to Brod, who, so reasoning, overrode these wishes. Brod in fact oversaw the publication of most of work of Kafka in his possession; these works quickly began to attract attention and high critical regard.
Max Brod encountered significant difficulty in compiling notebooks of Kafka into any chronological order as Kafka started writing in the middle of notebooks, from the last towards the first, et cetera.
Kafka wrote all his published works in German except several letters in Czech to Milena Jesenská.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 16, 2022
The script of the Old Vic's adaptation of Report to the Academy. Kafka's original was published in the collection, A Country Doctor, which I reviewed HERE.
It is a first person/ape account of a chimp captured in Africa, brought to Europe in a crate and who gradually humanised his behaviour as a means of freedom, eventually becoming a variety performer.
It's funny but profoundly tragic. He is rich and famous and has a female chimp companion, but he has no love for humans, yet is no longer an ape. An allegory for Jewish - or any - minority assimilation. Will he always be "other"?
Like most good stories, it raises more questions than it answers, particularly about what it is that makes us human and separates us from the apes - still a hot topic in many circles. I'm sure it was inspiration for Gerald the gorilla in the 1980s comedy show, Not the Nine O'clock News. You can watch it HERE, or read an excerpt, HERE.
Kathryn Hunter's performance (illustrated on the cover) was stunning in its skill and variety: capturing the pain and humour perfectly of Red Peter's story. It is a very good and faithful adaptation in its own right, but for reading, I still (just) prefer Kafka's original.
There is also a short Italian film, Mr Rotpeter. I Googled for a few clips, and even though I don't really speak Italian, found it very moving.
This book aims to explode the common myths about Kafka: that he was a depressive, celibate loner in a dead-end job, unacknowledged as a literary success in his own time, who somehow foresaw the Holocaust.
Despite its title, this book would only be meaningful to those who have read Kafka’s work and know something of his life, especially since the writing style is confused and confusing (and I found it irritating as well). It is chatty, jumpy, with lots of asides and footnotes, and sometimes swaps to present tense, talking about Kafka as if he’s a mutual friend. It also repeats itself in nearby pages (poor editing).
It starts with a fairly detailed political history of Prague, Germany etc in the early 20th century, but there’s no timeline of that, let alone events in Kafka’s life, which is especially necessary considering how much the book jumps around.
Then there’s too much about Kafka’s indulgence in porn and brothels (none of it remarkable), then some debunking of myths, followed by a chapter each on Felice and Milena (rather late, as both are mentioned several times in passing, with no real explanation, earlier in the book) and.. that’s pretty much it. Nothing about Dora, not much about his mother or the other Julie. A very odd structure.
As for the myths, any serious fan already knows that many of them are untrue or exaggerated, although he does have some interesting angles.
He points out the disparity between his fame and reputation and how unfamiliar his actual words are to most people: widely known but little read, although apparently Shakespeare is the only author who generates more PhDs and biographies. He is famous for his vision, but not his words.
He also cautions against using hindsight to infer premonitions of the Holocaust in Kafka’s work, though he draws parallels with Hitler (who also had a troubled relationship with his father), whilst dismissing such hindsight and saying it was just the zeitgeist.
He points out how modern technology has reintroduced long-distance, written romances, not so dissimilar to those Kafka had.
Then, near the end, he finally comes up with something controversial: Kafka’s life story is largely irrelevant to his fiction, as long as one understands the broad historical context. So after all the overwrought analysis of the man’s porn, what really matters is that we remember the European legal system was and is very different from that in Britain and the US (it’s normal for suspects to be identified well before any decision whether to prosecute, e.g. the parents of missing Maddie McCann in Portugal) and the political and boundary upheavals going on at the time would make an unannounced land surveyor ("The Castle") arouse suspicion.
On the plus side, the breezy style makes it a very quick and easy read.
See my Kafka-related bookshelf for other works by and about Kafka: HERE.
It is a first person/ape account of a chimp captured in Africa, brought to Europe in a crate and who gradually humanised his behaviour as a means of freedom, eventually becoming a variety performer.
It's funny but profoundly tragic. He is rich and famous and has a female chimp companion, but he has no love for humans, yet is no longer an ape. An allegory for Jewish - or any - minority assimilation. Will he always be "other"?
Like most good stories, it raises more questions than it answers, particularly about what it is that makes us human and separates us from the apes - still a hot topic in many circles. I'm sure it was inspiration for Gerald the gorilla in the 1980s comedy show, Not the Nine O'clock News. You can watch it HERE, or read an excerpt, HERE.
Kathryn Hunter's performance (illustrated on the cover) was stunning in its skill and variety: capturing the pain and humour perfectly of Red Peter's story. It is a very good and faithful adaptation in its own right, but for reading, I still (just) prefer Kafka's original.
There is also a short Italian film, Mr Rotpeter. I Googled for a few clips, and even though I don't really speak Italian, found it very moving.
This book aims to explode the common myths about Kafka: that he was a depressive, celibate loner in a dead-end job, unacknowledged as a literary success in his own time, who somehow foresaw the Holocaust.
Despite its title, this book would only be meaningful to those who have read Kafka’s work and know something of his life, especially since the writing style is confused and confusing (and I found it irritating as well). It is chatty, jumpy, with lots of asides and footnotes, and sometimes swaps to present tense, talking about Kafka as if he’s a mutual friend. It also repeats itself in nearby pages (poor editing).
It starts with a fairly detailed political history of Prague, Germany etc in the early 20th century, but there’s no timeline of that, let alone events in Kafka’s life, which is especially necessary considering how much the book jumps around.
Then there’s too much about Kafka’s indulgence in porn and brothels (none of it remarkable), then some debunking of myths, followed by a chapter each on Felice and Milena (rather late, as both are mentioned several times in passing, with no real explanation, earlier in the book) and.. that’s pretty much it. Nothing about Dora, not much about his mother or the other Julie. A very odd structure.
As for the myths, any serious fan already knows that many of them are untrue or exaggerated, although he does have some interesting angles.
He points out the disparity between his fame and reputation and how unfamiliar his actual words are to most people: widely known but little read, although apparently Shakespeare is the only author who generates more PhDs and biographies. He is famous for his vision, but not his words.
He also cautions against using hindsight to infer premonitions of the Holocaust in Kafka’s work, though he draws parallels with Hitler (who also had a troubled relationship with his father), whilst dismissing such hindsight and saying it was just the zeitgeist.
He points out how modern technology has reintroduced long-distance, written romances, not so dissimilar to those Kafka had.
Then, near the end, he finally comes up with something controversial: Kafka’s life story is largely irrelevant to his fiction, as long as one understands the broad historical context. So after all the overwrought analysis of the man’s porn, what really matters is that we remember the European legal system was and is very different from that in Britain and the US (it’s normal for suspects to be identified well before any decision whether to prosecute, e.g. the parents of missing Maddie McCann in Portugal) and the political and boundary upheavals going on at the time would make an unannounced land surveyor ("The Castle") arouse suspicion.
On the plus side, the breezy style makes it a very quick and easy read.
See my Kafka-related bookshelf for other works by and about Kafka: HERE.
December 21, 2025
This is a super interesting adaptation of Frankz Kafka's short story "A Report to an Academy," which is itself incredibly interesting as a story. What Teevan has done in adapting this is put it into verse--often using the physical layout of words on the page to convey information about Red Peter's emotional state when relaying different types of information. For instance, the phrase "no way out" is never presented as directly as that. Each word is set on its own line, indented and with wide spacing between the lines. Now, an interesting question arises when thinking about the text as a script for performance specifically, because an actor (or director, or whoever makes the choices for a specific production) needs to determine how to speak those words. Do you speak them as a normal sentence and ignore the textual layout--as some people do when performing Shakespearean verse, ignoring line breaks and reading based on the punctuation? Or do you use those lines to create emphasis? And what difference does it make artistically if one chooses one way or another?
The other super interesting thing about this is the nature of the transmedial adaptation. Kafka's short story is a work of prose. And while it's framed as Red peter speaking to a listening audience, the reader experiences the story precisely as a reader. But with Teevan's stage version, audiences experience it as listeners. This difference is important. An audience assumes (implicitly) the position of the members of the academy who have asked Red Peter to make this report. And when, at the outset, Red Peter says that he cannot give us the report that we (i.e., the members of the academy) want, it raises implicit questions about what we (i.e., the audience) want. Of course, we know when we go to see Teevan's play that we aren't hearing the autobiographical report of an ape that has transformed himself into a human. We're going to see and hear a human being who has transformed themselves into an ape, who has in turn transformed himself into a human. In this sense, the performance embodies one of the strange alienations of the short story, one that's easy to miss in prose: namely, that the words are not those of an ape-turned-human, but of a human (i.e., Kafka) writing in the persona of an ape-turned human. What we get is always mediated by the human--even in the passages where Red Peter acknowledges that he can only speak now as a human, and that is inherently insufficient to express his experience as an ape. But in prose, we can ignore/repress this mediation by pretending that there is no human agent who put down the words. On the stage, this mediation is harder to ignore because it is embodied by the performer on stage, whom we can see as human (even if, like Kathryn Hunter, who played Red Peter in the original performance run, the performer is a great physical actor).
https://youtu.be/ObfvvxAsOp4
The other super interesting thing about this is the nature of the transmedial adaptation. Kafka's short story is a work of prose. And while it's framed as Red peter speaking to a listening audience, the reader experiences the story precisely as a reader. But with Teevan's stage version, audiences experience it as listeners. This difference is important. An audience assumes (implicitly) the position of the members of the academy who have asked Red Peter to make this report. And when, at the outset, Red Peter says that he cannot give us the report that we (i.e., the members of the academy) want, it raises implicit questions about what we (i.e., the audience) want. Of course, we know when we go to see Teevan's play that we aren't hearing the autobiographical report of an ape that has transformed himself into a human. We're going to see and hear a human being who has transformed themselves into an ape, who has in turn transformed himself into a human. In this sense, the performance embodies one of the strange alienations of the short story, one that's easy to miss in prose: namely, that the words are not those of an ape-turned-human, but of a human (i.e., Kafka) writing in the persona of an ape-turned human. What we get is always mediated by the human--even in the passages where Red Peter acknowledges that he can only speak now as a human, and that is inherently insufficient to express his experience as an ape. But in prose, we can ignore/repress this mediation by pretending that there is no human agent who put down the words. On the stage, this mediation is harder to ignore because it is embodied by the performer on stage, whom we can see as human (even if, like Kathryn Hunter, who played Red Peter in the original performance run, the performer is a great physical actor).
https://youtu.be/ObfvvxAsOp4
June 23, 2025
Read this a while ago out of curiosity, and I watched the play for a class. It's kind of depressing. Kafka's Monkey is a story about the struggles of trying to fit into an unnatural society. When you read other Kafka stories like Metamorphosis or The Hunger Artist, it just feels like you've read them all. Not a bad story, but doesn't really do it for me.
August 30, 2024
Literally just finished this in 10 minutes. Superb.
May 17, 2015
With every detail, Red Peter's capture, imprisonment and slow acquisition of humanity becomes a stronger indictment of our savagery, selfishness and careless disregard for the value of life. The performance is rich with echoes of indictments past. Gazing at a sailor drinking rum, it is like Oliver Twist, helplessly innocent; garbling its way to language, it recalls Frankenstein's monster.
Behind it, is projected a large-scale photograph of an ape whose expression is eloquent with curiosity and compassion. In the silent moment when it gazes at her face, you appreciate how much Red Peter has lost by assimilating with men.
Very sad. Favorite line "smell me... SMELL ME!! (Begins to cry)"
Torched by the stain man kind has left on Peter.
Behind it, is projected a large-scale photograph of an ape whose expression is eloquent with curiosity and compassion. In the silent moment when it gazes at her face, you appreciate how much Red Peter has lost by assimilating with men.
Very sad. Favorite line "smell me... SMELL ME!! (Begins to cry)"
Torched by the stain man kind has left on Peter.
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August 29, 2017Saw a performance of this one, the performance was EXCELLENT. I'm still trying to figure out how much of that was down to script and how much of that was down to the actor though - hence why I'll refrain from rating for the meantime until I get some hands on a script.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews