The naked ape… Report to an Academy, Courtyard Theatre, Camden Fringe Festival

Ah, one learns when one has to; one learns when one needs a way out; one learns at all costs. One stands over oneself with a whip; one flays oneself at the slightest opposition.

Long before Chuck Berry wrote his classic song about over-elaborate administration and bureaucracy, Too Much Monkey Business, Franz Kafka was addressing the issues of societal convention and animal rights (which are human rights) in this tense and provocative play about an animal just trying to get by in a society dominated by inhumanity. If that sounds flippant then just look around and see where we stand in 2024, 107 years after the short story on which this play is based was published. It’s been years since I saw The Trial with Anthony Sheer, Metamorphosis with Tim Roth or read Kafka’s America and other works and yet the immediacy of his concerns are ever present and always ring true. Why is that?

The meaning or this parable is still debated and there are a variety of ways the story can be interpreted starting with Kafka’s awareness of the need for Jews like himself to assimilate in a culture such as Germany and stretching as far as evolutionary theory itself, after all adapt and survive is pretty much Darwin 101. Today though it felt very much a universal and sinister warning to all of us animals which shows the inherent beauty and strength if the author’s words and the skills of the performer. 

Robert McNamara plays Red Peter an ape who was shot and captured on a West African hunting trip and then taken back to Europe by ship. During the voyage he is brutalised by the men and with no option of escape, he learns their language not to communicate his despair but to mollify his all-powerful masters. Duly impressed they continue to torture him in ways humans do until he reaches Europe and faced with the option of the zoo or the stage, opts for the latter where he becomes a huge success. But is he now more man than ape and he is called to explain his situation to a top Scientific Academy.

Robert McNamara, photographs from J. Yi Photography 

You have done me the honour of inviting me to give your Academy an account of the life I formerly led as an ape.

Peter’s demeanour is serious and, clearly, five years after learning to talk he is also widely read and is able to address his audience with the academic rigour they would expect. He tells his story, stopping only to take increasingly frequent sips from his hipflask he keeps in his jacket pocket. His face still bears the red scar he gained after being shot during capture and it’s an angry wound that reflects his inner state. 

McNamara has performed Gabriele Jakobi’s adaptation of the story – which he also directs – on a number of occasions for the Scena Theatre of Washington, DC where he is also Artistic Director. His familiarity with the character and passion for the role was genuinely humbling to see and he attacked this difficult and aerobic monologue with real force. Peter’s need to be human also addresses the existential nature of freedom – is it illusory if we always have to sacrifice and hide our true nature?

We were left stirred and shaken with minds a-race with the play’s possibilities after a thoroughly absorbing hour. Peter an ape more sinned against than sinning had roused guilt as well as self-conscious examination, leaving his scientific and theatrical audiences with much to consider.

… your life as apes, gentlemen, insofar as something of that kind lies behind you, cannot be farther removed from you than mine is from me. Yet everyone on earth feels a tickling at the heels; the small chimpanzee and the great Achilles alike.

Robert McNamara, photographs from J. Yi Photography

IThankYouTheatre rating: ****

This play hits hard and is a tour de force from McNamara who, following his painful walk on to stage at the start, faces down the audience as Peter would the scientists he was having to explain his survival too. It’s this fifth wall that adds an extra painful dimension to the play – we’re literally between the ape and his captors who are the real audience whose opinion will impact his freedom, as we sit and watch. Every inaction is an action and we’re all political voyeurs unless we decide to actually do something and help.

Report to an Academy is presented by Scena Theatre and plays at the Courtyard Theatre until 6^th August, so be quick! Full details are on the Courtyard website here! 

It’s part of the Camden Fringe Festival for which details are here!

My first time at the Courtyard and it’s a spending venue a few minutes from Old Street and well worth your support!