In the 1990's a small English-speaking theater troupe was staging Kafka's "Report to the Academy" and "The Hunger Artist" in Prague. When a member of the troupe was told that a local paper had described their production as "grotesque theater," she became very insulted. But the paper wasn't being critical of the play's production, it was merely describing a style, which as Webster's puts it, is "characterized by fanciful or fantastic human and animal forms .... that may distort the natural into absurdity, ugliness, or caricature." Prevalent in 19th century art and literature, and certainly an influence on Kafka, it remains important to this day in The Czech Republic. To show the continuing strength of the tradition in Prague, we need only turn to what has been made by modern day artist David Cerny of perhaps the Czech nation's most potent and powerful symbol, the statue of St. Wenceslas astride a magnificient horse.
Cerny's "upside down Wenceslas" hangs outside the Lucerna movie theater (close to the original statue), where Kafka once went to see movies.
