Kafka e il teatro. La prova drammaturgica di Der Gruftwächter tra la riscrittura e il dramma escatologico

Abstract

Franz Kafka’s relationship with theater, as an author, as a consumer, and as the subject of countless adaptations, remains one of the least explored aspects in secondary literature. Nonetheless, from his childhood onwards, theatre has captured Kafka’s attention, spreading into his writings, his dreams and, even before that, reality itself. The only drama which survived its author is the fragment Der Gruftwächter (1916-17). As for many others of Kafka’s characters, this does not mean that the figure of the ‘gate keeper’ vanished with the abrupt interruption of the writing. Aware of the subtle ties that bind Kafka’s texts together, comparable to a perpetual attempt to rework and metamorphose a single obsession, this paper, in addition to analysing its content, contextualizes Der Gruftwächter within the so-called “writings of the Alchimistengasse” (Oktavheft H, 1916-17), and relates it to additional liminal figures, inhabiting the border between life and death, such as the Hunter Gracchus.