Josephine the Singer or The Mouse Folk

Alternative Stage Founding Donor

Major Sponsor of the Greek National Opera

Franz Kafka’s final novel, Josephine the Singer or The Mouse Folk, is adapted into a music theatre performance through a new, ambitious production by the GNO Alternative Stage. The music was created by distinguished composer Kharálampos Goyós, while the direction bears the mark of Savvas Stroumpos, known for his profound theatrical language and the intense physicality of his stage writing. The work will debut on 27 March and run for six performances until the 4^th April at the GNO Alternative Stage, at the SNFCC, featuring actors from Zero Point Theatre and musicians from the contemporary music ensemble Ergon Ensemble.

In the short story Josephine the Singer or The Mouse Folk (1924), Kafka transports us to a strange world where there is no youth, not even a brief childhood, as everything is determined by the struggle to survive, and children don’t have the time to be children. In this world, the kind of joy that comes from music never appears; singing has ceased to exist, and whistling is the only form of expression.

Female mouse Josephine, however, introduces an enchanting and captivating type of whistling into this world. Her ecstasy is what makes her whistling irresistible and unique – this odd Kafkaesque singer carries the ecstatic element in the most challenging moments for the mouse folk. Through her bizarre art, she creates a music-like call for revolt, aiming to reclaim life itself.

The performance attempts to shed light on the peculiar, underlying, and sarcastic humour that runs through Kafka’s tragic vision through a musical dramaturgy inspired by the “low”, both carnival-like and, at times, infringing, tradition of light music theatre and vaudeville.

Beneath the Kafkaesque universe
Franz Kafka’s strange and poetic world is imbued with the writer’s specific anguish over the precariousness of the human condition, which is constantly undermined by an unpredictable and profane humour filled with sarcasm and self-sarcasm. His last short novel, Josephine the Singer or The Mouse Folk (1924), is the utmost radical embodiment of the negative aesthetic that runs through his entire body of work. Written from the perspective of a writer who is aware that his time is running out, the text can be read both as the conclusion of Kafka’s work and as an early detector of ruptures in the modernist condition: between voice and meaning, the individual and the community, art and life, memory and oblivion.

The story is recounted by the mouse community and focuses on Josephine, a female mouse who believes she has a unique, exceptional voice. Although the mouse folk are not music enthusiasts and are constantly struggling to survive, crowds gather to listen to her sing. The narrator observes that Josephine’s “singing” is essentially no different from the typical whistling of all mice. However, her performances evoke a sense of collective peace and solemnity during times of social crises.

Josephine is convinced of how incredibly important she is to her folk and demands to be officially granted exemption from her daily duties so she can dedicate herself exclusively to her art. The authorities repeatedly reject her demands, viewing her art as a luxury rather than a necessity. In her effort to pressure the audience into complying with her demands, Josephine employs different tactics: she shortens her performances, pretends to be injured, and eventually disappears completely.

The community does not back down after her disappearance. Life goes on without her, and the narrator draws the conclusion that Josephine will soon be forgotten, as she will be absorbed into her folk’s anonymous, collective history. Her absence ultimately proves that, although the community appreciated her presence, her art was not a condition for her folk’s survival.

Α-music for Josephine
In his new collaboration with the GNO Alternative Stage, following the presentation of his groundbreaking opera of the absurd, Anthony’s Death (2022), distinguished composer Kharálampos Goyós takes on the challenging task of composing music for the performance Josephine the Singer or The Mouse Folk, a work centered on the concept of amusia. The production’s score combines “handmade” and analog “loops” from instruments, resembling a kind of primitive “techno” music, with organized fragments from authentic methods of learning musical instruments, rhythmic choral storytelling, and awkward short music-theatre “numbers,” shaping a soundscape between industrial suspense and romantic memory. As Kharálampos Goyós notes, “Delving deeper into this material that is filled with fertile contrasts and relentless humour, I was profoundly moved by the fact that Kafka, who was suffering from tuberculosis and was voiceless at that point, chose to dedicate his last novel, on the brink of death, to voice and its ontological nature. However, if one thinks this through, the text, which focuses on the concept of amusia, is probably the worst possible foundation for a music theatre composition: Josephine, the “national singer” of the mouse folk, does nothing special with her voice – as Kafka clarifies – , she demonstrates no transcendence or virtuosity, at least not to the extent that a folk generally unversed in music could appreciate. This blatant contradiction, just one of many, serves as a clear and decisive backbone for our approach to this performance.”

Kafka as a stage performance
An old acquaintance, not only through the pages of his books but also – and most importantly — through the stage of the theater, Franz Kafka has been a major focus of research for Zero Point Theatre and its director and founder, Savvas Stroumpos. From the company’s opening performance, In the Penal Colony (2009), to Metamorphosis (2012), Kafka Fragments (2018), and Report to an Academy (2021), Kafka’s writing is treated as raw material, which is open to processing. Engaging in a creative dialogue with the Attis Theatre tradition, Stroumpos develops the core tools of the Terzopoulos Method, creating a modern example of workshop theatre. As he notes: “Our persistent return to his world and the Daedalic landscapes he unveils is born out of our desire to remeasure ourselves against his highly fertile and provocatively open material, which we explore with a rare creative freedom, exploring uncharted territories each time.”

Three years after the successful music theatre performance Not I by Samuel Beckett, Savvas Stroumpos and his team return to the GNO Alternative Stage to present Kafka’s novel Josephine the Singer or The Mouse Folk (from Ioanna Meitani’s translation of the original), the ultimate work of the strange Jew from Prague, who insisted that he was “nothing but literature.” As the director remarks, “In this short novel, Kafka transports us to the world of the mouse folk, a “folk” that has forgotten what it means to be a child and to have musicality, a folk that has stopped writing History, and whose only concerns are struggling to survive and organizing defenses against their enemies. The mouse folk, therefore, has been dominated by oblivion, living in a constant, ruthless present. Time could be flowing linearly and monotonously if it weren’t for an “outlaw” singer who insists on claiming over the memory of her childlike qualities and musicality, and on proposing a different way of life through her peculiarities and eccentric behaviors.”

Katerina Papageorgiou's set, who also designed the costumes, alludes to a playful motif of the “Whac-A-Mole” game and war shelters. The actors’ bodies convey a constant feeling of appearing and disappearing, alertness, threat, and suppression. The sense of gloom in a confined space or shelter contrasts with the music's playful and at times sarcastic style.

The lighting design was created by Kostas Bethanis, and Maria Sikitano served as dramaturgy consultant.

Cast: Evelyn Assouad, Elpiniki Marapidi, Rosy Monaki, Stavros Papadopoulos

Featuring musicians from the Ergon Ensemble: Kostas Tzekos (clarinet), Andreas-Roland Theodorou (trombone), Vasilis Soukas (violin), Pericles Sioundas (accordion, vocalist)