World Premiere

Unable to communicate and shocking to anyone who sees him, Gregor Samsa is forced into a solitary existence confined to his room. As he becomes insufferable to himself and a burden to his family, when death finally comes it is a relief, freeing him from the anxieties of everyday life.

Following his acclaimed one-man production of Shakespeare’s King lear during Festival 2011, Contemporary Legend Theatre’s Wu Hsing-kuo returns with a mesmerising deconstruction of Franz Kafka’s seminal novella. Through poetry, music and live interplay with video projections, Wu showcases the spectacular techniques, colour and flair of traditional Peking Opera to transport Kafka’s early 20th-century tale of disaffection, anxiety, solitude and loneliness from industrial Europe to a fantasy world laced with the beauty of ancient Eastern cultures.

Contemporary Legend Theatre’s
King Lear, Festival 2011:

'Taiwanese answer to Orson Welles... there is no denying the actor’s extraordinary virtuosic power… He is quite brilliant.’
The Guardian