The Trial preshow

I think I have finally decompressed from seeing this show, and can now form at least somewhat coherent sentences about my opinion of it.  But honestly, most of it comes down to the preshow.

The Trial was put on by the New Century Theater Company who has my favorite actor Darragh Kennan (sorry Todd Jefferson Moore, you're close!) as artistic director.  They performed in the former Immigration and Naturalization Service Building, which essentially used to serve as Seattle's Ellis Island.  In fact, the room they performed in was the very room where new immigrants were processed.

It was also where we, as an audience, were processed.  The following is my best attempt to try and describe my own experience with it.

The Trial truly began in the lobby.  We naturally waited as the house remained closed, though we could see brief glimpses of actors going to and fro past the hanging plastic slats.  We could also hear some prerecorded messages playing over a loudspeaker, saying mostly inane things like "Josef K. will be played by Darragh Kennan," or "Please turn off your cellphones."  Finally the time was at hand, and an actress led a group of us past the slats and to a door.  She separated out 5 of us (I was in the first group), knocked on the door, and another actor led us inside to a rather disconcerting scene.  It was obviously normally the box office station, a kind of anteroom with a windowed box and closed double doors leading to (at that point, assumingly) the theater.  However, instead of a friendly box office person in the windowed box there were two men in suits, one of whom disconcertingly made eye contact and smiled the entire time.  Meanwhile the actor who led us in asked us to stand against a wall to record our height, and then assigned us to one of three lines.  I was the only one in the middle line.  He then named each line, and while the original names escape me because, well, I was disoriented and creeped the fuck out, they were something along the lines of Alpha, Beta, and Zeta.  He then knocked on the door three times.

And BOOM.  All of a sudden the doors open to reveal three stunningly gorgeous women in lab coats directly in our faces smiling at us.  The first took Alpha and went one direction past the doors.  The second took Beta and went a separate direction.  You cannot imagine the rising...well...terror, as I was left alone.  Finally the third told me to follow her, then suddenly turned back around and gave me one simple instruction...

"Please do not touch the red curtain."

As we finally entered the space, I discovered we were in a room with audience sections on 3 sides, and the stage completely blocked off on every side by a red curtain.  And here was the trick...it was nearly impossible to walk down the path to each section without touching the curtain.  There was maybe 6 inches of space between the railing on the side and that curtain.  The woman somehow magically skirted through without touching it, and I tried my damndest not to, sucking in my breath while she stared, smiling, at me.  She then gestured towards an aisle, the second row on the right side of my section, and calmly told me, "This is your seat."  I moved past her, instinctively smiling at her in that animal way that says "Please don't hurt me," and took my seat.

Because of the curtain I could only see a portion of the other sections, but it was enough to see the other 4 people I had entered with had made it safely, which, in my state, I was glad of.  I then watched as the 3 women made their way back to the door just in time for the three knocks to come and for the process to begin again.

The theater was sweltering.  Probably 100 degrees.  And I sat there, nervous, anxious, uncertain as to what would happen next, nearly sweating in my t-shirt and shorts.  I sat there for half an hour while the process continued and the seats slowly began to fill with more and more people.  This was perhaps the most fascinating part of the show for me; watching people's reactions to their situation.

Whenever someone touched the red curtain (which was often), the curtain itself made a lot of noise on its rollers, which then prompted whichever woman was around to yank back the curtain and very curtly say "Please do not touch the red curtain."  Some laughed it off.  One woman in the front row of the section to my right purposefully touched the curtain when the women weren't looking.  Some barged through and were straight-up rebellious.

At one point, three college-age men were put into my section and asked if they could have different seats.  A chill went down my spine as the woman replied, "If you wish to change your seats, you may be reprocessed."  She seated a couple other people then whipped back around to them and said even more menacingly, angrily, "If you wish to change your seats, you may be reprocessed.  The door is that way."  Then whipped back around and left.  The three left, and I was honestly relieved just to see them 5 minutes later when they were escorted to the back row of the section on my left.

Some might not have gotten the full experience of that preshow like I did.  Honestly I was glad I saw it alone because it simply heightened all the tension and terror, and got me in the perfect place to witness the rest of that play.  I think to most of the people there, this was like any other play, just with a weird introduction.  But to me...I was there.  The setting was oppressive, the heat was oppressive, everything screamed oppression...and I was, frankly, scared.

That carried me into the opening scene, when the curtains were drawn back to reveal Josef K. in his underwear in front of the same two men in suits we had seen in the windowed box, a clothing rack full of suits, and a lamp, which the two men turned on.  And from there...it was one long descent into metaphor and symbolism about ignorance, innocence, repression, choice, sex, power, and ambiguity all rolled up into one.  It was masterful acting, masterful direction, masterful choreography (there was a bit where the three women, who turn out to be Josef's secretaries at the bank where he works, hand Josef papers to sign and take them away faster and faster and faster in this almost machine-like way until finally they just fling them everywhere), masterful lighting design for such a small space (including scenes where just a lamp, or in one scene these bright lights attached to the landlord's glasses, was the only source of illumination).  Just...masterful overall.

I walked out thoughtful, shaken, sweating, and thoroughly entertained.  Easily one of the best (if not the best) plays I've seen this year.