Theatre: Metamorphosis

The play Metamorphosis, currently playing at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, is based on the 1912 absurdist, existentialist novella, written in German by writer Franz Kafka.

At the start of the story, Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman who financially supports his parents and sister Grete, awakens one morning to find out that he has turned into a giant insect. The rest of the plot deals with how Gregor's family reacts to this strange turn of events, which they just seem to take at face value.  There is no discussion about how or why Gregor has turned into an insect or whether he will ever revert to human form.  Rather, the family is repulsed by Gregor's appearance and the unintelligible sounds he now makes.  They are also distressed that as an insect, he will no longer be able to earn an income, meaning that the rest of the family must now go find employment.  Eventually the family's treatment of Gregor causes him so much distress that he dies in order to spare them of his presence.  Without Gregor to worry about, the family moves to a new home and are hopeful for a better future.

Gregor's plight is the fantastical physical manifestation of Kafka's own feelings of isolation, and inadequacy.  Kafka led an unhappy life, with a strict, abusive father who disapproved of his physical frailty and his passion for writing and the arts.  Instead, Kafka was forced into a hated insurance company job which he was too weak-willed to quit.  He felt like an outsider and a burden in his own home, his work, and even his country, as a Czech Jew living within the German dominated Austrian-Hungarian Empire.  Metamorphosis has many autobiographical themes, as Kafka poured his personal feelings of alienation and marginalization into this story.

 

 The play, a British/Icelandic collaboration from London, does a magnificent job of interpreting and staging this very strange story.  The fascinating set reveals the two floors of the Samsas' home, with the living and dining room on the bottom, and Gregor's bedroom on top.  To simulate Gregor's insect ability to walk on walls and the ceiling, his room and its contents have been rotated by 90 degrees.  The inverted perspective may also reflect Gregor's feelings of disorientation after his transformation.

The amazingly athletic Icelandic actor who plays Gregor spends the entire duration of the 90 minute play either crouched like a grasshopper, or hanging (sometimes upside down) from the "walls" or "ceiling".  His role is so demanding and so complicated to learn that he has no understudy to replace him if he gets hurt or sick. At one point, he bounces like a bug, on a small trampoline installed in the divider between the two floors of the set.  Eventually, he actually crashes through and falls down onto the main floor.

Gregor's death scene is beautifully melancholy, as he acrobatically hangs from and slides off a long red ribbon formed from the window curtains, which I took to represent his blood.  Others have interpreted this sequence as a representation of the "Descent of Christ" as Gregor sacrifices himself to spare his family from further grief.

The power of Kafka's story is that its themes are still so relevant today, transcending time, nationality and culture. In a panel discussion about the play, we heard about three different audience members who personally identified with Gregor–A wheelchair-bound girl, who could communicate only through eye-blinks, indicated that she understood what it felt like to be isolated and perceived as a burden.  Another woman compared the treatment of Gregor to that of her heroin-addicted brother.  A Chinese girl related Gregor's sacrifice to the ones made by Chinese revolutionaries during the Revolution.

The playwright accentuates the autobiographical nature of the story by giving Gregor's originally unnamed father the same name as Kafka's father Hermann.  He also moved the time frame of the play from early 1900s to the 1930s, to build upon the subconsciously political overtones in Kafka's story.  Grete's change in wardrobe throughout the play mirrors her changing attitudes towards Gregor.  Her initial love and sympathy is reflected by her pink, girlish sweater.  Later, when she is begrudgingly forced to work and take care of Gregor, her feelings of annoyance and then revulsion are shown in her stark, brown jacket and skirt. The military-like uniforms that both Grete and Hermann wear after taking jobs, along with her use of the words "Vermin", and references of the importance of work, seem to foreshadow the horrors of Nazi Fascism that is on the horizon.

I was blown away by the staging and presentation of this strange story.  While Metamorphosis could not be described as a feel-good play, watching it was intellectually challenging and stimulating.  This was a truly unique and memorable experience.