"Nashman seems to inhabit any other number of personas as well: the Jewish scholar and/or Klezmer dancer, the authority figure, the shrinking, uncertain human being who feels he's a failure at everything. Nashman's tour de force performance has him crouching in a cage like a wounded animal or standing on top of it in triumph--not to mention assuming every conceivable position in between."
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"Actor Alon Nashman handles both roles – son and father – firmly, creating distinct personalities. His performance is mesmerizing and compelling...The performer jumps between the two with verve and menace...It is a brave production bringing to life the mental state and journey of an author...Nashman gives a brave performance. This treatise gives insight and new light of Kafka’s life and work. It is a compelling, well-done, engaging production worth seeking out."
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"Combining heartfelt recitations with physical re-enactments and surreal segments that create a distinctly Kafkaesque mood, the performance is part revelatory reminiscences, part self-help therapy session, and part exorcism...The changes in the actor’s voice and demeanor are impeccable, as he fully inhabits the antithetical characters...A powerful examination of familial dysfunction and the unremitting effects it can have...Another world-class selection."
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"With both brilliant actor and director, such daunting material naturally lends itself to a one-man show. Nashman seamlessly embodies both the timid, intellectual son and the overbearing, authoritative bully of a father...The experience of 'Kafka and Son' is so intense that you find yourself hanging onto every word, and every new way director Mark Cassidy has devised for the scenes to play out...Nashman and Cassidy create powerful, haunting images with each new lamentation from the letter."
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“It's a great performance, undoubtedly. But there's nothing here to hold the audience's attention, no journey for them to go on, no jeopardy, no risk, no reward. The meticulous research behind it is evident, Nashman's Kafka is rich and detailed, and Cassidy's production is thoroughly polished, but ‘Kafka and Son’ has one crippling, fundamental flaw: it's dramatically dry as a bone. It's resolutely, unyieldingly, purgatorially dull.”
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“Throughout the performance Nashman plays the role of Kafka and also his father. The performer jumps between the two with verve and menace…The evocative set design combines perfectly with the lighting design and the anxiety that Kafka expresses is heightened to a new level. During 'Kafka and Son’ we see the inspiration behind some of Kafka’s novels. The relationship he had with his father shaped his work and Nashman has presented this complex relationship with style and menace."
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“Nashman uses a series of voices to articulate the brusque and overbearing nature of Hermann Kafka compared to the gentler nervousness of Franz and in his forthright timidity we see a great range of talent…A fragmented yet flowing narrative, often shocking, and depressingly understandable. Yet the few moments of humor, and genuine affection within the pleadings and tirades, bring out the humanity of this staggeringly well-wrought production.”
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“Sole actor Alon Nashman’s mannered interpretation feels perfectly pitched – you can readily believe this neurotic, fragile man created such hapless put-upons as Gregor Samsa and Josef K. It’ll polarize, I think – an hour and change of grandiloquent prose is a tough ask for any audience, and you may struggle to stay engaged throughout the lengthier digressions – but as a portrait of a toxic, destructive relationship, it is thorough and exacting.”
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