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  • Papa's Pizza: Classic Italian-American

    My recent posting about Sauced, the new neighborhood bistro
    in north Minneapolis brought some enthusiastic comments from neighbors, and a
    slightly disgruntled note from Mick Brogan, owner of the nearby Papa’s Pizza
    & Pasta.

    "We have been on the corner of 42nd and Thomas for 3 years
    and are still the best kept secret in Minneapolis. We offer East Coast Italian
    American cuisine and have quite the following. However getting the word out
    that we are here is a full time job. When you mention other restaurants in the
    area and not us it sure doesn’t help. We offer food and service that is 2nd to
    none …. Stop by sometime and see what we have to offer."

    So, let me apologize for the oversight. I did visit Papa’s
    Pizza and Pasta three years ago, and I liked it a lot. It’s your basic, no
    frills mom and pop pizzeria. These kinds of places used to be staples in every
    neighborhood a generation ago, but the relentless march of the Pizza Huts and
    Dominos have driven them to the edge of extinction. Locally – I can only think
    of Jakeeno’s, Dulono’s and the Pizza Shack, but I am sure that disgruntled
    pizzeria owners will remind me of a few more.

    At the time. Papa’s seemed to be facing an enormous uphill
    struggle. The average lifespan of a north Minneapolis restaurant seems to be
    under a year, and Pizza Papa’s had had a couple of incidents of vandalism – the
    big glass windows had been smashed a couple of times.

    I stopped back last night and ordered the spaghetti with
    meatballs, a classic rendition, served in a generous portion with garlic bread
    and four meatballs for $10.59. And I
    took home a 16" pizza deluxe, topped with sausage, pepperoni, onions, green
    peppers and mushrooms – big enough to serve four for $17.49. (Smaller pies are
    available, but this is the best value.) Both were first-rate. This is authentic
    East Coast Italian-American – just like in New Jersey – there is even a little
    tribute to Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack on the walls. A full lineup of
    hoagies and sandwiches is also available, plus a decent low-end wine list.

    Three years later, Papa’s Pizza seems to be thriving.
    There’s a nice little sidewalk patio in front of the restaurant, and the
    Brogans recently added a deli, offering everything from fresh Italian sausage,
    imported cheeses, pasta and olive oil to bread, snacks and Italian gelato – the
    only deli of its kind for miles around.

    The nice thing about this neighborhood mom-and-pop pizzeria
    is that this mom and pop really do try to be part of the neighborhood. Kris
    Brogan – Mick’s wife, is on the Victory Neighborhood Livability Committee, and
    the Brogans are big supporters of the nearby Workhouse Theater. There were two
    signs in their window for neighborhood events this Saturday – a Victory
    Neighborhood Spring Cleaning and Greening Day (meet at the Victory Neighborhood
    Association offices, 2200 44th Ave. N., 612-529-9558 at 9 a.m.), and
    a neighborhood tour of houses for sale (call 612-581-9308.)

     

  • Northeastern Winds

    MUSIC
    Heliotrope V

    Art-A-Whirl weekend is fast approaching, and with that come many exciting events. If you made it out last year, perhaps you passed by the Ritz for their first year hosting Heliotrope, Flaneur Productions‘ annual three-day exhibition of contemporary underground music. Now, mind you, last year wasn’t Heliotrope’s first year — this year marks year five — it was just the first year at the Ritz, to which it will return this year — tonight and through the weekend. So meander on over to Northeast Minneapolis, and plan on spending your weekend engulfed in a sensational art and music extravaganza. Today’s performers include International Novelty Gamelan, Noise Quean Ant, Paul Metzger and Davu Seru, Zak Sally/F.O.S., Tender Meat, Jesse Petersen, Sean Connaughty and Jason Kesselring, and Alexandra St-Germain.

    6 p.m., Ritz Theater, 345 13th Ave. N.E., Minneapolis; 612-436-1129; $8 for one day, $15 for a two day pass, and $20 for a three day pass.

    Loudray

    If you prefer to start your weekend art and music bliss on Friday, then head for Lee’s tonight for twangy music by Loudray, Eliza Blue, Cadillac Kolstad and the Flats, and Nikki Matteson
    and her Ruemates    . I have to give kudos to a band (Loudray) that sends a press release (or at least a myspace invite) with 18 exclamation points. I mean, talk about excitement! That was about 20 percent of their characters. "If you have not yet experienced the power that is
    LOUDRAY live, here’s your next chance! Witness the Twin Cities’ best
    live band, LOUDRAY!!! Be There!!!"

    Thursday May 15th!!! 9pm!!! Lee’s Liquor Lounge!!! $5!!!

    Are you excited?

    ART
    Techno Textiles: Inner Space to Outer Space

    And for a little art appetizer with which to wet your whistle prior to the weekend’s art saturation, check out the new exhibit at the Goldstein. Techno Textiles: Inner Space to Outer Space examines the world of specialty textiles and how these innovative materials are being used by leading designers from around the globe. It sounds quiet interesting actually — something different: protective clothing, intelligent buildings that dynamically respond to the environment, luminous wall interiors, interactive digital displays that are part of furniture upholstery, and fabric balloons used to ensure interplanetary probe vehicles land safely on the surface of Mars. Wow! The exhibit runs from May 16 to July 27, but the opening reception is this evening and features a panel discussion with Su Sokolowski of Nike and Mary Carey of Procédés Chénel International.

    7-9 p.m, Goldstein Museum of Design, 241 McNeal Hall, 1985 Buford Ave., Saint Paul; 612-624-7434; free.

     

  • John McCain Nude – 64 Results

    It was on the far right, literally. A tiny block of space someone had purchased to help The Rake live another day. Pay up, and you can paste your sign/add your link/sing your song on my web page/television/telephone/window/door/floor/car/bus/butt/etc…

    In
    the ultimate capitalist pervasion of everyday life, this heat-seeking
    piranha of an ad jumped at me, propelled by the finely tuned instincts
    of specialized software, somewhere in cyberspace, sensing Barack
    Obama’s name on the page and inferring from it the presence of
    intellectual prey.

    There I was, and there it was, so close:

    "The Real Barack Obama (link) The truth behind the canditate (sic)" – "Barack Obama Exposed – Free!" (with another link)

    I hesitated. The piranha bit down hard. I clicked!

    …and could almost feel the blood rush:

    "From
    his radical stance on abortion to his prominence in the corruption
    scandals that has been virtually ignored by the mainstream media,
    Barack Obama is not fit to be Senator — not to mention the next
    President of the United States. Obama has declared his presidential
    intentions, but it is up to well-informed and energetic conservatives
    like you to spare our nation from the scourge of a far-left President
    Barack H. Obama."

    Presidential
    politics is the grand stage of the most aggressive promoters, the
    truest believers. Neglect their theater and they will seek you out,
    seek to turn you out. I slept through the 2004 and 2000 elections. Even
    now, I was placidly detached. But this impassioned gnome of an ad leapt
    from the stage, snatched me from the placid pages of an innocent,
    literate webzine, and forced me, drove me, deep into its chosen thicket
    of passion and intrigue.

    I was in the hunt. I clicked a link, then another, and got:

    "It
    must be just me! I mean, does anyone else see the lying racist? The
    Obamination of this country is about to walk right into the Democratic
    nomination and no-one is doing a damned thing about it! PEOPLE…Obama
    hates this nation and WHITE people! HELLO! Is anyone out there? Are you
    folks so stupid and blind that it is already over? Is America already
    doomed from the inside out? Was President Lincoln correct when he said
    this nation will only be defeated from within?! Jesus people…can’t
    you see what is happening here? Wake up! The man will not cover his
    heart during the National Anthem…oh god…I could go on forever!"

    Hokey
    smoke! From clever, benign, literacy to full frontal attack in three
    clicks. I recalled twentieth century sites affixing Bill Clinton’s name to
    the legends of dead people, many legends, many dead people – the
    Clinton Body Count, they called it. One page had animated graphic blood dripping down the sides. I
    remembered admiring the enthusiasm (and the graphics!) more than the
    argument. Had I convinced myself that towering invective was unique to
    Bill? The question begged for investigation.

    I enlisted Google.

    "Barack Obama exposed" brought 38,500 Google "results". Oh, my! A huge number. But compared to what? I tried for context.

    "Hillary
    Clinton exposed" scored 12,600 pages, a bare third of Obama’s total; "John McCain exposed" an almost negligible 2,350. It’s an Obama
    phenomenon. But why?

    My
    brain churned through the usual suspects. Is the web’s free wheeling
    candor a cultural Petri dish, nurturing explosions of racist bacteria?
    Does Obama’s generic celebrity merit the poisonous paparazzi pursuit of
    Paris or Britney? Are the White Knights of the Right so certain of
    their enemy that they write off Hillary as a dead woman walking?

    Or
    was I, naive in the ways of The Web, missing the connotation of
    "exposed"? Perhaps it’s that Obama is, how to put this delicately, hot?
    I tried something else.

    "Barack Obama nude" brings 725 results, but "Hillary Clinton nude" launches 21,200 pages.

    Aha! The light goes on. Sealing the deal, "John McCain nude" scores a pitiful 64. That’s it!

    It’s
    about testosterone. The Bad Old Surfer Dudes want to see women naked
    and new kids trashed. What about McCain? 64 "results" close that
    question. Nobody cares about the old guy. He’s not a threat.

    I’d
    like to think elections are about ideas and principles, about who would
    do the best job. But there’s waaaay more than that. Frank Luntz
    theorizes it’s about talking to the reptilian brain: "80 percent of our life is emotion, and only 20 percent is intellect." I think I’ve found supporting evidence.

  • The Rape of Europa

    You’ve seen this image before. Of course you have — if nothing else, at
    least a cheap print in a college dorm. Gustav Klimt’s Gold
    Portrait, stolen from Viennese Jews in 1938, is now the most expensive
    painting ever sold — and the opening subject of The Rape of Europa,
    an "epic story of the systematic theft, deliberate destruction, and
    miraculous survival of Europe’s art treasures during World War II."
    Have you heard of the Venus Fixers, the Monument Men, the Roberts Commission, the MFAA? They were essentially a pared down Secret Service
    of the art world through the 1940s — young museum directors, curators,
    art professors, and architects who volunteered to protect Europe’s
    strong artistic cultural history by policing looting, theft,
    destruction, and artistic loss of any kind. Written, produced, and directed by Richard Berge, Nicole Newnham, and Bonni Cohen, The Rape of Europa
    maps out Europe’s artistic loss at the hands of the Nazis over the
    course of twelve years — the most savage theft and destruction of art
    to date.

    Opens Friday, May 30th at Landmark’s Edina Cinema, 3911 West 50th St., Edina.

  • Pawlenty's Spandex-Clad Aspirations

    Every hero needs a sidekick. Tombstone had Hammerhead, Batman had Robin, Thundarr the Barbarian
    had Princess Ariel and Ookla, and Paris Hilton had everyone. Repeatedly. Now,
    in the twilight years of his life, John McCain yearns for the same sort of
    comforting companionship that comes from a bosom buddy who can double as an
    effective lackey in a pinch. And while recommendations for this coveted
    position have streamed in from the furthest corners of the United States and beyond, some say
    the baleful eye of the GOP’s very own
    Methuselah     has come to rest in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

    Several names are being bandied about as potential choices
    for McCain’s VP/life insurance policy, however Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty has been
    near or at the top of every one. And why wouldn’t he be? Our governor brings
    suburban good looks, boyish charm that has consistently delivered astronomical
    approval ratings despite nigh-constant legislative gridlock and the chance to
    gain an edge in a state that hasn’t been in electoral play since Nixon in 1972.
    So what if he lacks a sense of humor and we all shift uncomfortably in our
    seats when he makes any sort of sexual
    reference    ? The fact remains that Gov. Pawlenty has known McCain for nearly
    30 years and is rather well liked in the hallowed halls of GOP power brokers –
    giving pundits across the country a chance to look down their noses, shuffle
    papers, and expound endlessly on the subject, coming to the inevitable
    conclusion that Pawlenty is the man for the job.

    And why am I different from those pundits? Well, I swear
    rather often, I’m more misanthropic, and I have a demonstrated appreciation
    for     boobs.

    So, while Gov. Timmy prepares to veto the recently passed
    education bill, which he warned the legislature not to if they ever wanted to
    see their precious Central Corridor, ever again, the unrelenting discussion
    spews forth from cable news networks and online media whenever there’s a break
    in the unspeakable clusterfuck that is the contest between Barack Obama and
    Hillary Clinton. Who will be McCain’s running mate? The
    Washington Post         was so desperate for news this past Sunday that they
    even wrote a top five list of potential candidates. Of course, since no one
    really has much clue what sort of decisions Sen. Senility hath wrought, some of
    the candidates listed for the position of Senate tiebreaker and chief
    presidential bootlicker stretched the bounds of plausibility and entered the
    realm of OMGWTFLOLBBQ.

    Take #5 for example – Mitt Romney. Not only was he exposed
    during his campaign for the presidency as an overly-ambitious, ego-driven
    lackwit, but this political chameleon with more hair gel than neurons has one
    central roadblock preventing him from merrily prancing down the road to sipping
    kiddie
    cocktails     at McCain’s side in the White House (aside from that whole
    general election thing) – Johnny despises him. Loathes him with the heat of
    1,000 suns, even. And since Mr. McCain already likely feels the encroaching
    doom of his mortality quite keenly, he’s not likely looking to give Romney a
    job that’s but one ninja throwing star away from the presidency.

    In any case, if Pawlenty does get the nod as the
    presidential sidekick, the bigger question is whether he’d accept the
    unflattering spandex outfit and wacky
    catchphrases     that are often the job’s sad requirement. And why would he?
    For the last two legislative sessions he’s made the DFL dance to his
    machinations, and in just a few more years he may be able to run for the
    presidency against Barack Obama. A few more years, and a possible withdrawal
    from Iraq,
    would do wonders to further divorce him from the Bush legacy – which is,
    without a doubt, the 250lb transvestite hooker with questionable immigration
    status pounds on the door of virtually every GOP campaign event, demanding the
    money for last night.

    And if Pawlenty doesn’t accept, it’d be quite sad for
    McCain’s Straight Talk Express. Tears would flow as the campaign staffers
    realize that Minnesota’s desperation for
    recognition on a national level – the same desperation that leads the state to
    lay claim to celebrities with tenuous Minnesota ties at best
    – won’t work in their favor this election cycle.

    But really, who are we kidding? How often does the office of
    the vice presidency get offered to a man? Here we have a savvy politician with
    ambition and a hunger to reduce Democrats to groveling and simpering lumps of
    flesh, fighting for scraps from the very government they should be controlling.
    Would he say no to his Great American Hero? Would he defy the call to arms?
    Could he resist the siren song of this real life Captain America,
    forswearing the clinging spandex and short shorts of the sidekick, possibly
    forever? Could he resist the temptation of vice presidential booty calls given
    that Mary has denied him her womanly charms for so long, so very long?

    I say thee nay.

  • Legal Lolitas

    I have always wondered why certain cars remain off limits to men of a particular age.

    What makes a Red Corvette more age-appropriate than a Mini Cooper? (Forgetting the conventional wisdom that posits the Corvette as "gold chain"—a sentiment unmasked as a simple prejudice with the Z06, a true American Beauty in red.)

    Or, for that matter a Mazdaspeed 3? Or the brand-new Mercedes SLK?

    While I am barely beyond a sophomoric mindset (seething, Kersten-kudoing hatred of video games notwithstanding including filthy games like Donkey Kong) I can appreciate certain rides for what they are. That is why I am currently fixated on a turbo VW bug in black.

    This car has a lot of issues.

    It is not the fastest 180 HP turbo on the market, its handling is a little spongy and it will choke and die on the dust of a Mazdaspeed 3.

    It does pack one little asset however–the simple to chip 1.8 liter turbo. I have seen this chipped to a cool 250+HP without extensive modifications to the drivetrain or suspension. You can also take full advantage of the superb after-market upgrades that exist for VW/Audi and even Porsche vehicles.

    Not that you, given your age and gender, would take advantage of a situation like this. Not with your misplaced longing for a Jag (not.) Not with this black bug possessing an equally black rag top (yes, its a convertible.)

    What would this do to your rug?

     

     

  • "The fourteenth day, we landed all our men"

    We finally have a new Call for Artists page on our website. You can access it directly through the More for Rake Readers links at the bottom of each page. Be sure to check in periodically for new listings. To submit a listing, send your description via email with Call for Artists as the subject line.

    ACTIVISM
    Walk or Bike to Work

    We started out Bike Walk Week with the Great Commuter Challenge, and now it’s Twin Cities Bike Walk to Work Day. Leave the car at home today — or at the very least, carpool with your colleagues. With soaring gas prices, just think of the money you can save — and the great shape your ass will be in if you continue this all summer. If only each day began with a downtown celebration. Today, from 6:30 – 9 a.m., there will be fun for all in both downtown Minneapolis (North Plaza) and downtown St. Paul (Rice Park). Anoka folks, don’t despair; join your fellow pedestrians at the Anoka County Government Center Atrium. After burning up those calories with your brisk morning commute, you can re-fuel with a free continental breakfast — and free Peace Coffee. You really can’t complain.

    LECTURE
    Duality Reality — What’s a Big Ole Company to Do?

    The Rake has been Twittering lately, and exploring social media possibilities all around. Sure, we have a MySpace page — though we really don’t do much with it anymore. And we put an occasional video on YouTube — Dude Weather is there every day. But I just haven’t taken the time to set up a Facebook page. I simply can’t stomach the idea of one more "arm" to maintain. And frankly, I’m not even sure how valuable any of this is to our readers, or to The Rake, in general. But we’re out there. At least we’re out there. Let’s be honest: I’m not sure anyone has any concrete answers. But certainly a panel of leading social media experts ought to shed a little light on the matter. Join MIMA today for Duality Reality: Who Controls Social Media in the Enterprise, and learn how big organizations are or aren’t adopting social media – and who makes the decision to do it.

    5:15 p.m., Solera, 900 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; members $20, nonmembers $45.

    FILM
    Steve Ef’n McQueen

    Need I say more? (OK, I guess so.) The Edina Cinema is bringing Steve McQueen’s 1963 epic World War II adventure, The Great Escape, to the big screen again. Hmmm.. that’s an odd sentence. First off, I say "again" because, well, it was probably on the big screen in 1963 — and surely is has been so many times since then — but not all of us have had the pleasure of seeing it there. No, not I — though I’ve seen it at least a dozen times in smaller formats. OK, let’s continue dissecting my beautifully misleading sentence. Steve McQueen’s epic 1963 World War II adventure — epic, yes; World War II, yes; adventure, definitely; but Steve McQueen’s? He stars in it, OK? Does that make it his? Does that mean he has to share it with Richard Attenborough, James Garner, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, and other stars in the film? And what happens if they don’t play nice? To say it’s a John Sturges film would perhaps be more correct. Why? Does the director own it? Perhaps. Or perhaps the author owns it. But which one? Paul Brickhill, who wrote the original book, or James Clavell, who wrote the screenplay? Frankly, I’d say the allied POWs who made their great escape from the Stalag Luft III German prison camp — via tunnel — in the ’40s probably own the story best. It’s theirs after all. Always theirs, despite a touch of fiction tossed in to appease the Holy Wood.

    1:30, 5, and 8:30 p.m., Edina Cinema, 3911 W. 50th
    St., Edina; 651-649-4416.

    ART WORKSHOP
    How to Think Like an Art Critic—For Fun and Profit

    Psst… Wanna know a secret? We have a new art blog in store this month. For a little glimpse into the mind of one of our Vicious Circle art critics, head over to Pratt Community College this evening for Michael Fallon’s workshop on well-reasoned art critique and how to appreciate the arts from a critically active frame of mind. How to Think Like an Art Critic—For Fun and Profit, brought to you by mnartists and Twin Cities Daily Planet, is open to anyone at all, but if you happen to be interested in freelance art writing, Fallon will help yo get started with pointers, resources, and direction.

    7-9 p.m., Pratt Community School, 66 Malcolm Ave. SE, Minneapolis; $15.

    In celebration of Children’s Week, the University of Minnesota Bookstore, at Coffman Union, is offering 25 percent off all children’s books.

  • Love and Loss in India

    Before the Rains, the
    first English language film by Indian director Santosh Sivan, is a
    surprisingly effective, accessible, and beautiful riff on familiar themes. Set in British-controlled 1930s India during a growing nationalist
    movement, the film is about love and self-destructive ambition in the
    face of a rapidly changing country.

    Despite the two-cultural-groups-that-just-don’t-understand-each-other
    formula, which you can find in the "Oscar-pandering" section of your
    local video store, I was surprised with how even-handedly the film was
    written. I’ve always been a bit bothered by the ease at which
    Hollywood films of this type may be distilled down to misunderstood-saints-clad-in-brilliant-sterling-silver
    versus the incorrigibly wrong/frustrating adjacent cultural group.
    Before the Rains,     by contrast, does an exceptional job of humanizing
    both sides. Sivan certainly injects his own ideas, but leaves
    plenty of room for viewers to draw their own conclusions.

    The success of the film is
    rooted in its simplicity. The photography, characters,and events
    fit perfectly into a concrete theme that is repeated throughout. Clocking
    in at 98 minutes, it feels streamlined and well edited, sustaining a
    well constructed level of tension until its satisfying conclusion.

    A cinematographer-turned-director,
    Sivan paints a pretty picture. HIs mastery of photography is dramatically apparent from the
    first image of sweeping countryside. It is one of the most visually
    masterful films I’ve seen since the tragically mediocre Assassination
    of Jesse James    .

    While it remains to be seen
    how well Before the Rains will perform in the box office, it
    undoubtedly represents the first trickle of a greater overlap between
    Indian and American cinema. Baliwood produces far more studio
    releases than Hollywood does, and they are increasingly being targeted
    at international markets, particularly the English speaking world. Before the Rains isn’t flawless, but if it’s an indication of what’s
    to come, I think we’re in for a real treat.


    Before the Rains opens on Friday, May 16th at Landmark’s Edina Cinema.

  • American Idle – Achin' Aiken – [Insert Pun]

    Originally written for Realbuzz 

    There’s something deliciously lame about Clay Aiken’s new album, On My Way Here. On all his previous outputs, Aiken’s milked his boyish, Pee-Wee-esque persona, happy to satisfy both the teenie-boppers and their wannabe moms. On this release, though, young Clayton is trying to mature. Sadly, it seems he’s playing dress-up in his father’s clothes, without realizing he’s just playing.

    On songs like "Ashes," Aiken is full of angst, sadness, and remorse (lately this has become the standard emotional cocktail for young, disgruntled pop artists…perhaps it’s always been that way). Maybe it’s an unfortunate condition of having come up knowing nothing but the interior of the industry, but whatever emotions he has can only be expressed through the most commonplace clichés.

    "Someone told me what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger," he leads off. Which sets him up for the reprise, "Now I can rise above the ashes."

    But "Ashes" presents us only with general, widely relatable emotions. It’s not until the introspective "The Real Me" that Aiken really gets into his groove.

    "Foolish heart/looks like we’re here again
    the same old game of plastic smile/don’t let anybody in
    hidin’ my heartache/will this glass house break?"

    I haven’t done the investigation, but there’s no way this wasn’t ripped from the journal Aiken kept in junior high. Unless maybe Jewel helped him with his songwriting. The Chorus:

    "You see the real me/hidin’ in my skin/broken from within"

    Apparently The Real Him is a fourteen-year-old boy whose date to the spring dance has just rejected him. Now he’s looking in the mirror, of course.

    Underlying each track is a predictably undulating progression: When the songs are loud and over-produced (which is often), Aiken is defiant and/or angry and/or triumphant; when the instrumentation dies away and we’re left with only his voice (which is also often), Aiken is morose and/or contemplative.

    The guitars have been filtered through so many computers they sound like electrical currents; the drums have been softened and tweaked so they sound like guitars. Sure, Aiken’s got a good voice. But it’s so obviously manipulated that even this, which should be his strength, gets ruined. The term for magazine models is airbrushed; I’m not sure what it is for musical artists.

    I guess what it comes down to is, Aiken is now professing sincerity, and yet his music hasn’t really changed at all. Before, at least, he was (outwardly) content to be a poster boy for the industry. Now it seems he wants to break away and become independent – if we’re to take his lyrics seriously at all, this is the message he’s sending – and yet, he is completely without the faculties to do so.

  • The Defenestrating of Josef K

    It could have been so good.

    That was the biggest disappointment – not how bad it was, but the discrepancy between its actual and potential levels of quality. I’m speaking (writing) of The Ballad of Josef K, a puppeted interpretation of Franz Kafka’s The Trial, on stage now at the Illusion Theater.

    When reviewing (or just viewing) a movie or play that’s been adapted from a novel I’ve read, I do the best I can to separate the text from the performance (Bard notwithstanding). It’s important to judge works of art on their independent merit, but when you’re talking about an iteration of The Trial, at least for me the comparisons between subject and spin-off are inevitable. What a theater troupe is able to do with a novel as elusive as this one is almost more interesting than the liberties they’ll take with it.

    And puppets, it seems to me, could actually have been the perfect medium for this specific book.

    As I understand it, The Trial (the novel) is largely about power. We meet Josef K on his thirtieth birthday, when he is apprehended for no particular reason. "Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K.," it begins. "He knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested." (K, the protagonist of The Trial, The Castle, and a couple shorter pieces, is Kafka’s fictionalized personality- the writer’s middle name was Josef; later on in The Trial one of the arresting officers is revealed to have the name Franz…take it as thou wilt.) For the rest of the story, Josef tries to figure out what charges are being leveled against him, and by whom. His investigation takes him up through a government hierarchy – servants, secretaries, lawyers, judges, priests – and he’s never quite able to get to the top tier.

    Or, in other words, he’s never quite able to find out who’s pulling the strings. (What an awful pun, I know, I know.) In all seriousness, though, what better way than puppets to act this drama out? Puppets – with or without strings – are bodies controlled by forces that, by the very nature of puppetry, are meant to be both anonymous and omnipotent.

    The notion of fate, and the extent to which we manage it, is the main theme of Kafka’s work (The Trial and otherwise), and there’s a fairly obvious correlation to a puppet and its master.

    Which the Milwaukee Mask and Puppet Theatre left untouched. While their dummies were impressively rendered (fans of puppet theater might be impressed), and at times expertly controlled, they let alone any issues dealing with pre-determined fate. The relationship between the actors and their puppets was not mysterious – it was simply incidental.

    Even when he was writing the book, it seems the author felt the tug of some supernatural power he was unable to control. An entry from his journal:

    August 30. Cold and empty. I feel only too strongly the limits of my abilities, narrow limits, doubtless, unless I am completely inspired. And I believe that even in the grip of inspiration I am swept along only within these narrow limits, which, however, I then no longer feel because I am being swept along.

    There is implicit reference to some force that ‘limits’ his abilities, and the apparent opposite of that force, inspiration, is just another god whose whim Kafka has to endure. (Explicitly, Kafka could, then, be considered a puppet, controlled by Inspiration and its opposite, which I think he would have named ‘Doubt.’) Not to acknowledge this in a performance, if not irresponsible, is at the very least passing up a terrific chance to further Kafka’s explorations.

    Rather than sticking to Josef’s story – that of K’s relation to the governing forces of his soul – the production literalized Kafka’s novel, in order to show the dangers of our current political climate. From the playbill: "Today the news reveals hidden worlds of torture, terror, and mistaken identity…The Trial [bears] an amazingly contemporary resonance [with this]." (Sadly, when the plot did follow K’s investigations, it was at its most compelling.)

    I would argue that, on the scale of human experience, politics are at least one hierarchical step below religion (see Spinoza’s Ethics); therefore, I would argue that this troupe was attacking Kafka’s story at a level lower than it’s meant to be understood. (Though maybe this doesn’t apply anymore; we’re living in a world where it’s difficult to say the word ‘soul’ and be taken seriously, whereas politics have become ubiquitous and all-important and seemingly infinite…kind of like God’s supposed to be. Maybe it’s actually impossible to relate Kafka’s novel to the modern world and stay true to his intentions.)

    The physical torture depicted in the novel – scenes of rape and electrocution – were the most vivid aspects of the performance. On stage there was more puppet intercourse than Team America: World Police (and less funny); an apt title could very well have been The Hyper-Sexualizaton of Josef K. But I really believe Kafka intended these aspects to be metaphor. To grossly oversimplify: in the book, I think, the sexual perversity was a sort of rape of the soul; in the play, though, it signified the corruption of government. To go a step further: In the book, the corruption of government stood for the corruption of the soul; in the play, the corruption of government stood for the corruption of government.

    So I suppose the question comes down to intent. Maybe director Rob Goodman loved the novel for the same reasons I did, but also saw potential to make The Trial into a modern parable for Abu Ghraib. That’s fine. But I would still call it dangerously un-ambitious. Why lessen the novel’s meaning for the purposes of manifesto? Why make it so mundane? So earthly? Whatever its merits (which I’ll leave to the theater blogger), there was a roughness to this performance akin to an unfinished jigsaw puzzle – all the pieces may have been there, but there was minimal effort to assemble them correctly.