METAMORPHOSIS. To 15 March.
London/Tour.
METAMORPHOSIS
by Franz Kafka adapted by David Farr and Gisli Orn Gardarsson music by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.
Lyric Theatre Hammersmith To 2 February then tour.
Tour ends 11-15 March 7.30pm Mat Thu & Sat 2.30pm Theatre Royal Plymouth 01752 267222 www.theatreroyal.com (Booking fee).
Returns to Lyric Hammersmith 25 March- 5 April 2008.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat 2.30pm.
Runs 1hr 25min No interval.
TICKETS: 08700 500511.
www.lyric.co.uk (Hammersmith)
Review: Timothy Ramsden 14 January.
Despondency presented with theatrical bravura.
It can’t have been very pleasant spending 41 years as Franz Kafka, whose frail physique heightened his sense of vulnerability in an inexplicable world. There was his heavy-handed dad, made explicit in Alan Bennett’s play Kafka’s Dick and also visible in Gregor Samsa’s father in Metamorphosis, sitting at home as his son works all hours to earn money, then rejecting him just because he turns into a giant bug.
In Kafka; something terrible has already happened by the time you start thinking about it, and things grow remorselessly, inevitably worse till body, mind or will gives in.
Insurance agent Kafka knew the routine work ruling Gregor’s life. But Gregor’s taken by surprise, like the reader of the story, when he wakes up transformed. This adaptation by the directors of co-producing companies, Lyric Hammersmith and Iceland’s Vesturport ensemble, opens downstairs with Gregor’s family beginning a routine day in their routine living-room, as detailed in its decoration as the most realistic drama.
Yet darkness looms threateningly upstairs. It’s here Gregor emerges from his bed and clambers, bug-like, around a room which it soon becomes apparent is aligned at 90-degrees to the rest of the set, reversing horizontal and vertical. Bjorn Thors’ tall, distinguished figure, in a jacket split by his transformation, clambers around walls and ceiling with such skill it takes an effort to realise how perilously he’s often positioned – most productions would have had the safety-harnesses out from the start.
But Thors also shows how Gregor keeps his inner humanity, still striving to be helpful as others reject him. Initially sympathetic Grete, eventually revolting against him, proves the most virulent: no-one’s prejudice is more extreme than the ex-liberal’s. So he ends, suspended, as his family stand turned away in a separate patch of Hartley T A Kemp’s lighting, which has developed an increasingly sickly green tinge, before they escape into a riot of bright-coloured flowers.
Borkur Jonnson’s two-level set allows a range of visual surprises, while the adapter/directors combine Kafka’s calm surface manner with a vigour that can have their protagonist leaping insect-like across the whole stage in this extraordinary adaptation.
Grete: Unnur Osp Stefansdottir.
Gregor: Bjorn Thors.
Mother: Elva Osk Olafsdottir.
Herr Stietl/Herr Fischer: Jonathan McGuinness.
Father: Tom Mannion.
Directors: David Farr, Gisli Orn Gardarsson.
Designer: Borkur Jonsson.
Lighting: Hartley T A Kemp.
Sound: Nick Manning.
Costume: Brenda Murphy.
Assistant director: Jamie Rocha Allan.
Tour:
5-9 Feb 7.30pm Mat Thu 1.30pm Sat 2pm Liverpool Playhouse 0151 709 4776 www.everymanplayhouse.com
14-16 Feb 8pm Mat Sat 3pm The Lowry Salford 0870 787 5790 www.thelowry.com
26 Feb-1 March Tue 7pm Wed-Sat 7.30pm Mat Thu 2.30pm Birmingham Repertory Theatre 0121 236 4455 www.birmingham-rep.co.uk
4-8 March 7.30pm Northern Stage Newcastle-upon-Tyne 0191 230 5151 www.northernstage.co.uk
11-15 March 7.30pm Mat Thu & Sat 2.30pm Theatre Royal Plymouth 01752 267222 www.theatreroyal.com (Booking fee).
2008-01-15 08:24:10