Subterranean Shakespeare Presents Franz/KAFKA

Mae Ziglin Meidav has created an arresting script exploring the life of one of the most unique literary craftsman whose imaginative visions were so powerful that they have since come to define their own genre, now simply known as "Kafkaesque." Meidav intersperses passages from the author's works with events from Kafka's bourgeois upbringing, employment as an insurance clerk, and subsequent reluctant engagements to women to illustrate why he was tormented by his natural talents and so reluctant to share them with others - to the point of refusing to be published. Most of his anguish seemed to stem from his relationship with his domineering father, who, as portrayed by Robert Hamm (a dead-ringer for Rip Torn, and I offer that as the highest of compliments), is so compelling that he dominates every moment of his stage time. If only Stanley Springer, who renders the young Kafka admirably, could span the author's later years a bit more effectively, it would allow Meidav's dramatic efforts to be realized completely.

Express, June 13, 1997