Young Vic, London
If Kathryn Hunter's performance as ape-turned-variety-performer Red Peter were merely physically impressive, it would be startling enough. From the moment she lopes on to the stage, every muscle works to convey a creature trapped between two states of being. Her eyebrows scrunch, her arms twist uncomfortably, her toes turn in. When she flexes her crooked fingers to shake hands with a member of the audience, the flickering movement is suggestive of flick knives and magic tricks. When she shuffles across the stage in gasp-inducing splits, it's clear she isn't built like you or I.
But Hunter is as agile intellectually as she is physically, her quick wits proving useful early in the show when the audience grow strangely obstreperous ? arguing audibly, mobile phones firing off ? allowing her to continue unfazed. Colin Teevan's crisp rendering of Kafka's short story A Report to an Academy, subtly layers comedy, satire and direct censure of human nature, and Hunter dances between them so nimbly that the audience is caught off-guard by the violence that emerges from the midst of laughter. Buried beneath the amusing burlesque of theatre life is an allegory of colonialism that is profoundly disturbing.
With every detail, Hunter's narration of 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. And her performance is rich with echoes of indictments past. Gazing at a sailor drinking rum, she is like Oliver Twist, helplessly innocent; garbling her way to language, she recalls Frankenstein's monster.
Behind Hunter is projected a large-scale photograph of an ape whose expression is eloquent with curiosity and compassion. In the silent moment when Hunter gazes at her face, you appreciate how much Red Peter has lost by assimilating with men.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/may/31/kafka-monkey-young-vic-review
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