Metamorphosis

The thing about the theatre is that it never leaves you ambivalent – good or bad it extracts an emotive response, ‘I loved it’ – ‘I hated it’ – ‘I couldn’t have cared less about it’. After seeing the brilliant ‘Kafka’s Monkey’ I was ready and eager to dive back into the wonderful but disturbed world of Franz Kafka.

Kafka wrote the short story ‘The Metamorphosis’ in 1915. In 2005 - 06 Mr. David Farr, with Mr. Gisli Orn Gardarsson, adapted the short story into this intellectually and physically gymnastic production.

The premise is simple, set in Prague, early twentieth century, the Samsa’s, a lower middle class family with pretensions, wake up one morning to find their son Gregor, the breadwinner and provider for the family, hasn’t been to work, hasn’t been down for breakfast in fact hasn’t left his room. Indeed he isn’t quite himself anymore; he has in fact been transformed into a giant bug. What happens next is the guts of the play.

How do we cope, as a family or a society, with someone who stands out as different? How thin is the veneer that binds us all together in an unspoken contract of tolerance and civility? Mr. Farr says that he uses the play, “as an allegory for the Jewish experience in Europe during the twentieth century”, but it could just as easily relate to a family dealing with a son’s homosexuality, or family dealing with an elderly parent’s Alzheimer's Disease, or any number of events that challenge our belief in what is right, wrong or acceptable behaviour.

What should this family do when faced with their son turning into a bug? The simple answer is of course - to understand, love and support him through this trial and nurture him back to health after all that is what is expected of us. The truth is that after a short period of time the family becomes angry, repulsed and resentful of their son, he soils himself, he scares them and he makes demands on their time. The only real solution is to lock him up, throw away the key and hope that he quietly dies so the family can return to a ‘normal’ life. This is pretty much how the Samsa’s cope.

The cast are clearly strong and they know the work intimately but no retelling of this play would be complete without special mention of the incredibly athletic and gymnastic performance by Mr. Bjorn Thors, as Gregor, who clambers and crawls over the set at alarming angles.

With music, composed by Mr. Nick Cave, The Bad Seeds and Mr. Warren Ellis, that sets the tone brilliantly and a set, built over two levels, designed by Mr. Borkur Jonsson, we are transported into another reality that is both horrifying and at times funny. It’s horrifying because of its callousness, yet funny at times, because of the pretence of ‘normality’ that the family struggle to maintain. Did I say funny, well actually it’s not that funny it’s really rather bleak and you certainly don’t walk out ‘humming a show tune’, but it is a piece that speaks as eloquently today as it first did way back in 1915.

Metamorphosis is not for the faint of heart but it is well worth the effort.

Metamorphosis is on at The Sydney Theatre, Hickson Rd. 22 April – 2 May 2009.