ROT

"Ah Kafkaland - that world of nameless crimes, faceless bureaucrats, loose women, doomed men, dust and decay. Synaesthetic Theatre, an ambitious clutch of recent NYU Experimental Theatre Wing grads jounrey to those paranoiac shores ... [The Company] captures the novel's angst and anomie with this multimedia version of The Trial. Directors Joy Leonard and Chris Nichols use live video feeds, distorted vocals, voice-overs, lip-synching, a trip-hop soundtrack, pre-recorded film, cross-gender casting, dance and stylized acting to provide thematic complements to the play .... The video of the stage action presents each scene from multiple perspectives emphasizing the spectator's role as witness. The ambient soundscape, mixed live cleverly samples bits of dialogue into its loops, creating a constant echo."
(Alexis Soloski, Village Voice)

"Nichols and Leonard like to involve the actors and the design team and develop ideas through improvisation. The three main themes taht evolved out of this process were dreamlike quality, the machinery of justice and rotting .... What resulted was a surreal world of paranoia. Video segments explored and imitated film noir, surveillance video, porn movies, and Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Some clips are introduced as evidence against K in his trial, such as his backstage visit at a cabaret where he is seen carousing with the dancing girls. Some are glimpses into the imaginations of the characters, how they see themselves in their own minds. The most clever use of this was the Leni and K scene. A silent video clip, shot in film noir style, of Josef K and Leni (a femme fatale played by a man) begins playing on the monitors, and the actors reenact the same scene onstage, speaking the words in sync with their silent screej counterparts."
(Amy L. Slingerland, Entertainment Technology Online)