Red Peter the Ape in Report to an Academy has evolved to behave and talk like a human, based on the famous book by Franz Kafka and brought to the stage by Scena Theatre.

Robert McNamara’s performance takes on ape-like characteristics especially when he returns to the chair and curls his arm across his head in an ape-like position. There’s a thick red scar across his face an old wound left as a reminder of human cruelty.

The ape’s description of the shipment container he was brought across the water in allows the audience to envisage the cramped surroundings where he is forced to crouch in an uncomfortable position. An inhumane passage for an innocent Ape.

We (the audience) are deemed the top academics in the scientific academy and Peter addresses us directly in the hope of educating and helping us to understand what it is like to be treated as a “wild” Savage primate when he hasn’t been the one behaving like a Savage. He was living the life created for him in his natural habitat.

He asks the academy to rethink their thoughts on what it means to have free will and animal cruelty. Animals too deserve their freedom, it’s only “man” who decides otherwise. He has evolved to become like them and surely that deserves equal respect! Raising the question. Who is the missing link?

For more information on this production please visit the link below.

Four Stars

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/report-to-an-academy