Open Call: Oklahama at Markgrafentheater: Kafka's Promise Becomes a Profound Stage Play
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A Dubious Promise: Open Call: Oklahama in Erlangen
Franz Kafka's Karl Roßmann stands at the end of an odyssey and reaches for a final promise: In the Nature Theater of Oklahama, everyone is supposed to be welcome, everyone needed. The production Open Call: Oklahama brings Kafka's fragment to the stage of the Markgrafentheater Großes Haus on October 4, 2026.
Kafka's American Dream Under Tension
Karl Roßmann has already been swallowed and spat out by the working world multiple times. Now, a new door seems to open before him. But the promised theater turns out to be a mysterious place where belonging, meaning, and success can tip at any moment. The dramaturgy combines outrageous comedy with references to contemporary politics and presents the American dream in a skewed, unsettlingly modern light.
Profound Humor and Multi-layered Production
Director Tomas Schweigen develops a stage event from Kafka's posthumously categorized fragment as the last chapter of the novel America, which oscillates between grotesque, social analysis, and existential quest. The production plays with layers of meaning and takes the audience into a world whose rules Karl Roßmann understands no better than the spectators.
Set design, costumes, and video are by Stephan Weber, and the stage music is by Martin Gantenbein. Linda Best is responsible for the dramaturgy. The ensemble, including Lena Drieschner, Tobias Graupner, Vera von Gunten, Luca Hass, Silvester von Hößlin, Ralph Jung, and Johannes Rebers, gives the strange theater troupe its changing faces.
An Evening at the Theater Between Hope and Discomfort
The theater atmosphere thrives on contrast: the apparent openness of the call is followed by a play with uncertainty, control, and societal conformity. Kafka's precise observation of the working world meets a direction that uses comedy not as relief but as a sharp magnification of social contradictions. Thus, a performing art arises with political resonance and a strangely hovering tension.
Conclusion: Experience Kafka's Promise Live
Open Call: Oklahama promises an intense stage experience about work, exclusion, hope, and the longing for a place in the world. Those who appreciate Kafka, contemporary spoken theater, and profound humor will experience a production in the Markgrafentheater that continues to question long after the closing image.
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