“He needs more space!” Lucy exclaims as she and her daughter clear every piece of furniture from Gregor’s room. Gregor screams, desperately trying to communicate—but they understand nothing. Gregor can do nothing but watch as his mother and sister remove both his belongings and his humanity. Both terrifying and beautiful, Metamorphosis tells the story of Gregor Samsa, the breadwinning son in an average family, who awakes from a nightmare to find he has been transformed into a giant insect. Diverging from the typical monster movie transformation plot, Gregor’s family makes no effort to discover the reason for his peculiar situation. Gregor’s parents insist on keeping him locked in his room while they pretend he no longer exists. Though for a short while his sister, Greta, attempts to create peace between Gregor and their parents, it is only a matter of time before she, too, finds it impossible to live with a giant bug.
Metamorphosis shines a harshly realistic light on human nature and our fear of the unknown. I found it hard to watch at times—at first disgusted with the family’s treatment of Gregor, then terrified of how similarly I might react in their situation. Directors David Farr and Gisli Orn Gardarsson have adapted this Kafka fable into a breathtaking piece of artwork. Aside from the ominous and stunning soundtrack composed by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, the curious set designed by Borkur Jonsson is truly exceptional. The split-level set combines the family’s ordinary dining room below with Gregor’s upright, bird’s eye view bedroom above. In an incredible feat of agility, Gardarsson—who also plays Gregor—scales the walls and truly creates the eerie feeling of a giant insect in a small room. As the play progresses, the set allows the audience to see the Samsa family attempting to carry on with their ordinary lives, while also seeing Gregor neglected and abused. Filled with incredible attention to detail, Metamorphosis tells a thought-provoking, beautiful, and tragic story of a boy who awoke from a bad dream into something even worse.
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