To be redeemed from the wrong life
Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a monstrous vermin. Is it a dream? The people around him are overwhelmed by Gregor’s transformation and so disaster takes its course.
While the transformation of humans into animals – with subsequent redemption – has a long tradition in European culture, Samsa finds no salvation in Kafka’s story. He dies alone in his dark room.
‘I, Samsa’ is about the classic heroine’s journey: as in the myth, the protagonist is catapulted out of her familiar world and must first shed her old self before she can be reborn.
The actress Paula Götz tells the story as a monologue, accompanied by the personal stories of young adults from Bonn who grapple with the question: What should you do when your own body goes on strike and refuses to continue living the wrong life? And what would the right life be?
