Watch: an absurdist play personifies a nationalist state through a self-isolated madman

How would a nationalist state behave if it were a person? This question is the basis for I Can See You, a parody theatre performance premiering today at 6pm GMT.

Produced by Berlin’s Roma Act theatre troupe, the play is loosely based on Franz Kafka’s story The Burrow. In the one-hour play, a man, isolated in a flat, explains his life goal: to protect himself from the rest of the world and its supposed and real dangers. However, he ends up as a prisoner of his own fears.

“In this castle square I collect my supplies, everything that I hunt beyond my current needs inside the building, and everything I bring with me from my hunts outside the house, I heap up here,” the character says at one point in the play.

A critique of receding nations, the performance is closing the fourth edition of the international Roma Heroes Festival in Hungary. Watch the play here.

You can also donate to support the making of a book of plays that have been part of the festival here.