Odradek

World Premiere

“Odradek: Inspired by Kafka but confounding story won’t let us in” – Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune 1/17/11 – “In Franz Kafka’s short story “The Cares of a Family Man,” the master of literary enigma invents Odradek, a weird domestic creature made up of gnarled and knotted bits of thread, stuck around a star-shaped spool. The titular, troubled family man, who narrates Kafka’s yarn, sees Odradek lurking throughout the crevices of his house, and seems to know this monster well. He thinks he’ll be outlived.

Kafka scholars long have debated what “other” the critter represents: Money? Sexual desire? A lost god? Some 75 years later, “Odradek” was the name given to a photo-like composition by the Canadian conceptual artist Jeff Wall, which shows a dirty, foreboding staircase being descended by what appears to be a sad young girl. If you look to the stains at the left of the staircase, you think you can see a monster to whom a troubled kid can talk.

The creature Odradek is also at the center of the striking, intense and visually impressive — yet cold, distant and thoroughly confounding — new show at the House Theatre of Chicago. It opened Sunday night in Wicker Park”.

An over-the-top view of Kafka’s troubled boy in ‘Odradek’ – Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun Times 1/19/11 – “In his new work, “Odradek,” now receiving a harrowing, eerily timely but ultimately overly sensationalized world premiere by the House Theatre of Chicago, playwright Brett Neveu has lifted one crucial element (plus all the alienation) lodged in a brief story by Franz Kafka titled “The Cares of a Family Man.” He has then gone on to craft his own completely new narrative. And employing the most spare, beautifully poetic but visually gruesome terms, he has crafted a tale about a profoundly disturbed boy (played superbly by the slight, intense Joey Steakley) who lives in a small Midwestern town with his divorced dad (David Parkes) and who ultimately self-destructs in horrific ways.

Feeling abandoned by his already remarried, distant mother, the boy grows increasingly violent and self-mutilating as his father becomes romantically involved with the local physician (Carolyn Defrin), who is called on to treat him. Or is she sadistically destroying him? Most likely, the whole thing is just the boy’s ever-intensifying Freudian nightmare. And Neveu is giving us the ghoulish blood-and-guts evidence of an unraveling schizophrenic who feels terribly threatened by the loss of his father to a female interloper. (Incidentally, the chemistry between Parkes and Defrin is palpable.)

In the Kafka story, Odradek is a small, mysterious creature whose name, of German or Slavic origin, refers to a wooden spool of thread, “flat and star-shaped.” It’s the sort of thing you might find in a drawer full of junk or the dusty crevices of a stairway — an insignificant but enigmatic remnant emblematic of nothing and everything in existence. In Neveu’s play, Odradek becomes the boy’s imaginary friend or alter ego — a shapeless nest of cloth and dust (deftly manipulated by puppeteers) that lurks beneath the lobby stairs in his apartment building.

The play’s uncanny arrival in the wake of the Tucson, Ariz., rampage gives it a heightened meaning, and this is not the first time Neveu has wrestled with the breakdown of a young male mind. (His 2002 work “Eric LaRue” was a fierce response to the Columbine massacre.) But the relentlessly gruesome grand guignol of it all ¬— from amputated toes to complete evisceration and more — goes too far, making the current film “Black Swan” look like a picnic in comparison.

Yet Dexter Bullard’s production (which would benefit from greater vocal projection by all three actors) is deeply musical, with a haunting, anguished score for double bass by Josh Schmidt played throughout by Ruben Gonzalez. And once again, set designer Collette Pollard has worked a spatial miracle with her extraordinary architectural set, magically lit by Lee Keenan. Pollard’s angled, shadowy, dark-windowed lobby world is a place Kafka might easily have called home”.

Critic’s Pick – John Beer, TimeOut chicago 1/27/11.  “Kafka’s little parable “Cares of a Family Man” concerns an enigmatic creature known as Odradek, made of thread and crossbars and laughing like fallen leaves.  The Czech genius doesn’t explain much about Odradek; neither does ex-Chicagoan Neveu in this strange, gripping new piece inspired by the tale.

A lot more happens in Neveu’s version: We’re introduced to a strained father-son relationship; the Father (Parkes) carries on an affair with the boy’s Doctor (Defrin); the Boy (Steakley) develops ever-closer ties with the massive puppet Odradek, lurking under the even more massive stairs. But as in Black Swan, the events of Odradek come mediated by the Boy’s own troubled consciousness: Whether the events we see are actually happening, much less what they mean, remains tantalizingly hard to determine.

Neveu and director Bullard seem to have soaked up the sensibility of midperiod David Cronenberg, both in the deliberately flat characterizations and in the ever more intense visceral shocks that punctuate the piece’s second half. The scenes of the Boy’s decline are the most effective horror theater I have seen, in part because we are led so gradually into a realm of deeply skewed and off-kilter perception. The expressionist tendencies  of Neveu’s script are underscored by Josh Schmidt’s moody and gorgeous score, bowed by an onstage bassist. Odradek could use a dose of Kafka’s  eerie specificity: There’s nothing here to rival the apple in Gregor Samsa’s back or Titorelli’s cage. All the same, its daring innovations are like a breath of torpid, disease-ridden air”.

Odradek by House Theatre – Neal Ryan Shaw, NewCity Chicago 1/18/11 “There’s something both captivating and yet oddly irksome about The House Theatre’s style. In “Odradek,” the set, lights, puppetry and sound all contribute to a decidedly macabre, expressionistic horror fantasy. The central set piece, a giant staircase, looks like it came straight out of a haunted-house film.

What’s troubling is whether or not this new play by Brett Neveu, the well-produced Chicago playwright, is really worth all the ingenious stagecraft. Adapted from a Kafka short story, the play finds Kyle struggling to come to terms with the divorce of his estranged father and absent mother, and with his father’s new romance with the doctor treating Kyle for self abuse. His only comfort comes in a pile of junk under the stairs, which Kyle brings to life as the monster Odradek.

It’s all rather heavy stuff, and the play plods forward like a leadfooted monster. The persistent disquiet of the play might actually be a lack of nuance. Ultimately the details of the domestic drama hardly rise above cliché and never truly reconcile with the play’s more shocking elements (and they are lovingly rendered). Like the boy protagonist, the production avoids the harsh difficulties of reality, instead escaping into a darkly, sumptuous fantasy. Kyle might have realized his error in the end; I’m not sure about the House”.

Highly Recommended – Odradek – Tom Williams, www.ChicagoCritic.com – “Inspired by the Franz Kafka’s “The Cares of a Family Man” and the Jeff Wall painting “Odradek,” Bret Neveu’s Odradek is part Midwestern Gothic Fairy tale and part thriller. This intriguing and often disturbing work grabs us from the start and keeps us engaged in part from the terrific mood music composed by Josh Schmidt and performed by Ruben Gonzalez on the bass.  Atmosphere rules here.

The press notes state: “Odradek tells the story of a single father from a small Iowa town who becomes troubled over his son’s declining mental heath. After a visit with a new doctor, the boy returns home and develops an odd friendship with a creature named “Odradek,” a dark, shifting form made of twine and rags that lives under the stairs outside his bedroom. When the boy’s health continues to deteriorate, the father returns to the doctor for further advice and the two enter into a romantic relationship. As his illness progresses, the boy begins to perceive the romance between his father and doctor as an echo of twisted words and hallucinated deeds. Cryptic fantasies become the boy’s stark reality as his life twists towards the shadows of Odradek’s existence, creating a world where the most sinister fairy tale may hold the key to the boy’s only means of mental and physical salvation.”

The set (by Collette Pollard) features a large, long staircase that hides a monster made up of  rags and twine. This  entity grows as Kyle’s mental health deteriorates as his father (David Parks) struggles to help his demented son.  Kyle’s condition, both physical and mental, slides as he has trouble sleeping and coping with reality. Kyle spends much time on the staircase talking to Odradek. Father and Kyle’s interaction is a search for understanding and common ground by both. Father relies on the Doctor (Carolyn Defrin) to diagnose Kyle’s problem but when she falls for Father, Kyle retreats into a fantasy world of hallucination fueled by the eerie movements and voice of Odradek.  Kyle’s  inability to come to grips with reality – the loss of his mother to divorce and his father’s courtship with his doctor contributes to his problem.

Odradek is a mesmerizing macabre horror story filled with vague motivations and inexplicable actions that will upset and shake up audiences.   The atmosphere and pace of the show creates an aura of mystery and destruction where Kyle’s ultimate salvation lies with his odd friendship with a growing monster.  This show is imaginative, dark and creepy. It is a provocative and dramatic show that is an imaginative  piece of sinister theatre. It is unlike anything you’re seen on stage.  Don’t miss it.

Odradek is a mesmerizing macabre horror story filled with vague motivations and inexplicable actions that will upset and shake up audiences.   The atmosphere and pace of the show creates an aura of mystery and destruction where Kyle’s ultimate salvation lies with his odd friendship with a growing monster.  This show is imaginative, dark and creepy. It is a provocative and dramatic show that is an imaginative  piece of sinister theatre. It is unlike anything you’re seen on stage.  Don’t miss it”

Odradek – www.Aroundtownchicago.com – “House theatre of Chicago is known for doing things that are very different; plays that are meant to open the eyes of their audiences and those who are regulars are used to seeing “the unusual”. Their current production “ODRADEK”(pronounced  OH-druh-deck) is a thriller about a teen aged boy , Kyle ( deftly handled by Joey Steakley) who cannot accept his parents’ divorce, being in the custody of his father and as it turns out, his father’s new relationship with the boy’s new doctor. Kyle is a loner seeking to escape his life as it is and in doing so befriends a strange mass of forgotten objects under the stairs that has named itself Odradek. The more Kyle suffers the more he leaves the real world in favor of this imaginary world belonging to these lost and forgotten items.

As the play ( one long act-about 80 minutes in duration) progresses, the relationship between Dad and Doctor  (the very sultry Carolyn Defrin)gets stronger, including sleep-overs, the boy tends to spend more time with his “monster” friend and to prove he cares, adds more “stuff” under the stairs. His world becomes one of hallucinations and we as the audience get to witness a lot of “gross” happenings, never really knowing if they are truly taking place or just in the thoughts of the boy. There are some strange surgical procedures ( are they real or imagined?) and at the end, a stark ending for the boy. While I have recommended this production, I must tell you that this is based on the quality of the set, the direction, the acting ability and the overall picture ( set( Collette Pollard has done a masterful job in such an intimate theater) and Mario De Fabo’s props ( a very important part of making this production whole). The music( Ruben Gonzalez) is very eerie indeed and the Bass adds to the mysterious and dark mood set by this script, not the story-line itself. This is not for the weaker audience.

There are parts of this show that are difficult to view and some of you may find your stomachs turning a bit. The destruction of the boy’s life and hopes is shown in removal of body parts and the boy’s self destructive attempts. This is what makes it a thriller, yet not a Hitchcock type as it is far more macabre. There are many metaphors for life in general; medicated teen years, divorce, the ending of a father/son relationship. Odradek, a monster made up of all the discarded items in Kyle’s life, it appears has claimed him as a discarded item as well. It is hoped that this show will open the eyes of the audience so that they can think about their lives and relationships and see if perhaps they can change direction so that their loved ones will never have to experience what Kyle goes through”.

From House Theatre – Odradek tells the story of a single father from a small Iowa town who becomes troubled over his son’s declining mental heath.  

After a visit with a new doctor, the boy returns home and develops an odd friendship with a creature named “Odradek,” a dark, shifting form made of twine and rags that lives under the stairs outside his bedroom. When the boy’s health continues to deteriorate, the father returns to the doctor for further advice and the two enter into a romantic relationship. As his illness progresses, the boy begins to perceive the romance between his father and doctor as an echo of twisted words and hallucinated deeds.