Franz Kafka’s unfinished novel entitled “Castle”, is considered to be one of the most prominent and mysterious works of 20th century world literature. The book was first published in 1926 after the death of its creator, as did two of Kafka’s other major works – “Process” and “America”. “Castle” remained unfinished, leaving numerous questions unanswered:

Is it a Castle or a Lock to which no one has yet found a key? The main character in the novel appears in an unnamed, geographically obscure village, and attempts to get inside the Castle with no luck.

There is no classical structure here: exposition, development, climax, and an ending. This is a story that ends with the phrase “and here the manuscript ends”. Everything that takes place in the novel is either the writer’s dream, or an allusion to real life. From the moment it was published, one interpretation follower another: analyzing the novel’s conflict through the societal lens (human vs. the bureaucratic machine), a religious/philosophical search for God, and the psychoanalytic interpretation of the plot, which apparently reflects the complicated relationship of Kafka with his father, brides and his surrounding world.
Like the main character in the novel – K., who longs to enter the Castle but moves further and further away from his goal every day, we, the readers move further away from uncovering the meaning the more we try to understand it. Reading this novel is like getting lost in a labyrinth woven from the author’s and reader’s thin threads of consciousness and subconsciousness, which sometimes brings us closer to the Castle, and sometimes moves us further away. Maxim Fadeyev’s production of “Castle.K” is the project team’s attempt to find their own paths to Franz Kafka’s mysterious Castle.

Recommended for audiences ages 16+