Innocence
directed by Anmol Vellani

Commemorating the 100th death anniversary of Franz Kafka, together with Toto Funds the Arts we present Innocence, a play written and directed by Bangalore-based theatre personality Anmol Vellani. The play is a black comedy based on Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial and set in India. About the play:
Early one morning, two strangers arrive unannounced at the apartment of a bank manager (K), claiming to be policemen. They drag him out of bed, eat his breakfast, turn his house upside down, ask for a bribe, and inform him that he is under arrest. At his first hearing, K pleads his innocence but is ignored by the judge, who also refuses to disclose the charges under which he has been placed under arrest. Everyone he meets asks him to plead guilty, including his lawyer, but he refuses to relent. Consumed by his obsession with proving his innocence, he neglects his lover and fires his lawyer. He is arrested and set free and rearrested multiple times over a period of eight years, but he continues to believe that the scales of justice will eventually tilt in favour of a blameless man. In the end, K's innocence does not help him to escape the clutches of the law, but neither is the state able to find a shred of evidence to prove his guilt. How will this impasse be resolved?

The play has a powerful message: We, the people, in any society, are diminished if we are deaf to a blameless man’s cry for justice.  
 
Credits:
Script and direction: Anmol Vellani (Based on the novel The Trial by Franz Kafka)
Lights: Arun DT
Sound: Nikhil Nagaraj
Production: Veena Appiah
Cast: Ashish D’abreo, Sanjna Banerjee, Srinivas Beesetty, Manu Varkey, Rohit Dave, Arvind Dev 
Dates and time: 22 March 2025,  3.30 p.m. & 7.30 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours with a 15 min. interval
Venue: Ranga Shankara

Innocence premiered on May 10, 2024 at the Bhavan.