This poster was issued by the celebrated Deutsches Theater in Berlin to celebrate its 1982 pantomime version of Franz Kafka’s 1915 novella, The Metamorphosis. The photograph from the performance features an actor who appear to be imitating the huge insect into which the protagonist, an ordinary salesman, finds himself transformed when he wakes up one morning. The play was directed by Bernd Hahnke, a member of the theater’s pantomime ensemble between 1974 and 1991. He took major roles in numerous pieces at the theater, shaping its artistic development; he also taught there and staged several plays in addition to this one. The poster combines slightly discordant elements: the elaborate Fraktur of the title with the sans-serif lettering of the text below it and the sinister, contemporary photographic image. Together, they evoke both the general strangeness of the original story and the avant-garde nature of this production.