Amerika or, The Man Who Disappeared Reviews

Stage and Cinema- Recommended

"...If you think America is in an existential crisis right now, you either don’t know your U.S. history, or you aren’t familiar with Franz Kafka’s Amerika or, The Man Who Disappeared—which, in Dietrich Smith’s sprawling, imagination-on-steroids adaptation at Open Fist Theatre, becomes a delirious, zany, occasionally exasperating funhouse ride through the American Dream’s historical malfunctioning. Its investigation of immigration, corporate dominance, and the eternal divide between haves and have-nots mirrors our nightly news, but this rendering of the search for the elusive American Dream is far more insightful, and infinitely more entertaining."

Stage Scene LA- Highly Recommended

"...Writer-director Dietrich Smith takes a young German immigrant on the journey of a lifetime in his stage adaptation of Franz Kafka’s Amerika or, The Man Who Disappeared, the year’s most exhilarating theatrical adventure ride."

Stage Raw- Recommended

"...Few writers are as closely identified with the torments of a sinister bureaucracy as Franz Kafka. Arguably one of the most influential literary voices of the 20th century, he worked a day job as an insurance adjuster, much as some clerk today might work for Blue Shield or the state's workman's comp to determine who got what, if anything, for claims of injury. The job was part and parcel of what made Kafka such a desperately unhappy man - he hated everything about it and longed to devote his life to literature - yet was so unsure of his worth that he requested, at the end of his short life (he died at 40 of TB) that all his writings be burned. Fortunately, for literary posterity, his friend (and eventual biographer) Max Brod could not bring himself to carry out Kafka's wishes. He published and promoted his works instead."

Larchmont Buzz- Recommended

"...Open Fist Theatre Company's production of Amerika, now onstage at Atwater Village Theatre, fittingly depicts the nation cast in such a statue's shadow. Fresh off the boat from Prague, Karl Rossman (Ethan Remez-Cott) is rapidly delivered from rags to riches and back again. He undergoes a hapless odyssey, meeting all manner of callous interlopers along the way."