'Josef K' brings Kafka hauntingly to life

A junior bank manager is accused of a crime. He wants to know the specific charges against him and the identity of his accusers. He wants to confront the evidence. But he cannot; all of that is secret. The only thing that this desperate man discovers, as he goes from his lawyer to a priest and even to the court sketch artist he thinks has some influence, is that his alleged offense is punishable by death.

The preceding is not something from the war on terror, but a scene from Franz Kafka's novel "The Trial." It illustrates the perils of living in a society sliding into a totalitarian twilight zone.

Kafka's strange and timely story is getting an even stranger puppet and music interpretation in "The Ballad of Josef K" at the Illusion Theater in Minneapolis, where it opened Thursday.

The adult-themed production, an import by director Rob Goodman for the Milwaukee Mask and Puppet Theatre, is a genuinely interesting if not altogether fluid piece of work. Adapted by John Schneider, the whole piece could be condensed into something more potent.

Still, as in plays with scale -- the biggest puppets represent the judge and the clergy -- it makes some salient points not just about Eastern Europe, of which Kafka wrote, but also about our democracy.

"Josef K" centers on a man celebrating his birthday. He goes to a cabaret and becomes titillated. When he gets home, the big-headed agents of government come for him. From there, he is living on surreal borrowed time. The weirdness of the whole thing gets amplified not just by the vivid, compelling puppetry but by the music. Composed and performed by Minnesota band Thunder in the Valley, it sounds like a cross between the Cowboy Junkies and Kurt Weill.

Kafka wanted to show how open secrets, when used to keep people in line, can corrupt the whole fabric of society. In "Josef K," which has some violent rape and death scenes -- here, we are thankful that this is puppetry -- the corruption becomes archetypal and moving.

Rohan Preston • 612-673-4390