This poignant adaptation of Kafka’s darkly comic fable about a man’s overnight transformation into a monstrous insect closes tonight at the Kennedy Center after an all-too-brief three-day run.

Franz Kafka ordered his friend Max Brod to burn his incomplete novel The Trial after his death in 1924; Brod edited and published it instead. Although written more than 80 years ago, the book was so prescient in its portrayal of a idly malevolent bureaucracy that it feels timeless. Christopher Gallu has written a new adaptation for Catalyst Theatre Company (where he is Producing Artistic Director), and here he steps into some mammoth shoes:…

Plays by women; plays about women. The fairer sex captures the imagination of many D.C. theaters this September, offering works by celebrated female authors and performing plays that focus on female characters. And if that’s not your thing, well, there’s always Kafka. Two area theaters present works by Caryl Churchill — Studio Theatre performing A Number beginning Sept. 7, and Fountainhead Theatre staging Top Girls, which opens Sept. 8. The former show explores ethical issues…

Ooops, Did I Do Thaaaaaaat?: Can Steve Urkel from “Family Matters” and Franz Kafka be used in the same post? Why yes, they can. In what the Post describes as a “series of Kafkaesque legal arguments,” the District government is trying to deny any wrong doing in accidentally tearing down a Marshall Heights apartment building that was supposed to be renovated for affordable housing. Ooops! The owner of the building wants $1.9 million to replace…