My study on János Szikora’s 1978 staging of The Trial explores the factors that contributed to the growing prominence of neo-avant-garde theatre-making and a kind of counterculture in the National Theatre of Pécs at the end of the 1970s. Szikora (according to his own statement) aimed to preserve the diversity of interpretations evoked by Kafka’s novel. His concept for the staging was so resolute that he rejected staging Peter Weiss’s dramatised version and created a new adaptation with Géza Morcsányi instead. Szikora’s decision was undoubtedly driven by his recognition of the significant theatrical potential inherent in Kafka’s text, and by exploiting this, he was the first among Hungarian theatre-makers to challenge the canonical interpretation of Kafka.