Under InspeKtion: A Shtick Figures Production

Under InspeKtion: A Shtick Figures Production

Allegra Rosenbaum

Everyone who has ever entered so much as a post office knows that bureaucracy involves tricky layers of forms and customs that no one really understands. Franz Kafka’s The Trial speaks to this in a way that has often been interpreted as serious and dark. While these interpretations are true, many people often pass over the idea that The Trial is actually very funny. Shtick Figures’ new web series, Under InspeKtion directed by Alessio Franko and Max Marcellus, is a brilliant and hilarious take on Kafka’s posthumous work.

K (Alessio Franko) is an account accountant at a German bank that translates loosely to "Germany Money Venture Powerhouse Framework". He works hard to make ends meet and to support his sick father, but never really seems to advance anywhere in his career. He is infatuated with Anja Burstner (Emily Hooper), who seems very uninterested in him. Just as K finally convinces Ms. Burstner- as K addresses her- to come to his home for tea, he is visited by Inspector Hans Freie (Clay von Carlowitz). Apparently K is under arrest for charges that the inspector won’t disclose.

Franko and Marcellus take daily life events (going to work, making dinner, tea, talking to a woman), and show how every little misstep can be construed against us (suspicious activity, lack of inflection, copyright infringement, sexual harassment). The banal becomes suspicious and any attempt to redirect suspicion is even more suspect. Under InspeKtion uses this paranoia that is ever-present in Kafka’s novel and makes it genuinely funny. The series takes the 21st century liberal desire to be consistent and politically correct and shows the viewers just how ridiculous that desire is. Everyone has done something wrong in the eyes of the law. We are all just as guilty and just as innocent.

Check out the Shtick Figures YouTube Channel here.