Culture juive | Spectacle vivant
Dora and Franz, Saving the Day – Caroline Arrouas
What if theatre could repair History? With Dora and Franz, Saving the Day, a wedding that never took place becomes a vibrant celebration of love and life. Carried by sensitive writing and immersive staging, this production, blending theatre and klezmer music, invites the audience to become both witness and participant in a suspended moment, where Franz Kafka appears in an unexpected light: loving, radiant, intensely alive.
Partager
July 1923. On the shores of the Baltic Sea, Franz Kafka meets Dora Diamant. She has left Poland for Berlin; he is already gravely ill. A sudden, passionate love arises between them. For love, Kafka commits what he would call his “most foolish act”: instead of continuing an existence punctuated by stays in sanatoriums, he chooses to follow Dora to Berlin. He chooses life, at the risk of losing his own. A few months later, he dies.
Several weeks before his death, Kafka asks Dora to marry him and writes to his father. His father’s refusal brings the plan to an end. Dora and Franz, Saving the Day begins from this rupture to imagine what never took place: to celebrate this prevented wedding and to turn the stage into a space of reparation and discovery.
The original and immersive staging invites the audience to become the guests at this reclaimed wedding. Together, actors, musicians, and spectators form an ephemeral community gathered to “save the day.” Klezmer music, at times carried by a festive orchestra, at others infused with the depth of the Yiddish culture so dear to Kafka, accompanies the celebration. It gives voice to a memory and vitality that resonate with the loving impulse of the two protagonists.
The production thus reveals an unexpected Kafka: no longer only the author of dark and tormented works, but a man driven by a powerful urge for life loving, daring, ready to risk everything to live the present intensely. Through the waiting of the father’s reply, the fragility of Kafka’s health, and the urgency of love, the play raises a question: might he have lived longer without Dora? Perhaps. But would he truly have lived?
Led by experienced professionals, this production offers a sensitive and luminous reading of Kafka while celebrating the Yiddish world he deeply admired. By transforming the wedding into a shared theatrical act, Dora and Franz, Saving the Day speaks to us of love, resilience, and that inner strength that allows us to recognize, even within strangeness, something profoundly familiar.
Production: Le Petit Bureau
Concept and Direction: Caroline Arrouas
Texts: Franz Kafka, Dora Diamant, Caroline Arrouas
With: Caroline Arrouas, Jonas Marmy
Running time: 1 hour 10 minutes
This project has received support from the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah.
Performances
Friday, February 20, 2026 at 8:00 pm in Les Lilas (93) – residency showing
Lilas en Scène
23 bis rue Chassagnolle
93260 Les Lilas
► Booking
From Monday, March 30 to Saturday, April 11, 2026 in Strasbourg
Théâtre national de Strasbourg
1 avenue de la Marseillaise
67000 Strasbourg
► Booking
From Friday, May 22 to Sunday, May 24, 2026
Théâtre Dijon Bourgogne
Parvis Saint-Jean
Rue Danton
21000 Dijon
