A strong female figure is the focus of the Tribüne Linz in their current production “Before the window lies the world”: Milena Jesenska. The Prague-born journalist, who married the writer Ernst Pollak against her father’s will and went to Vienna with him, began an intensive correspondence with Franz Kafka, who also came from Prague, in 1919. In 1920 the two met in Vienna for four days. She refused Kafka’s wish to go to Prague, whereupon the writer, plagued by anxiety and pulmonary tuberculosis, broke off the correspondence.
Written and directed by Cornelia Metschitzer, the play sheds light on this phase in Milena Jesenska’s life; in the fall, a second piece will shed light on her life as a resistance fighter. The form that Metschitzer chose for “Before the Window is the World” is unusual: it is an erratic collage of read texts, overlays and played passages that don’t really gain momentum right away. But the more intense the relationship between Jesenska and Kafka becomes, the more the piece develops into an exciting, touching tragedy in the style of a television documentary for the stage – an impression that is also supported by the music, which seems like a soundtrack.
Simone Neumayr knows how to portray Milena Jesenska in her contradictions, tenderness and stubbornness with a keen eye for the small things, Rudi Müllehner plays a double role as a fragile Franz Kafka, destroyed by fears, and a flighty Ernst Pollak. A great love story with a tragic end.
Source: Nachrichten
