METAMORPHOSIS tours till 5 April.
Birmingham Rep and Touring
METAMORPHOSIS: Adapted by David Farr and Gisli Orn Gardarsson from the story by Franz Kafka.
Lyric Hammersmith and Westurport Theatre joint production.
Runs: 1h 30m, no interval.
Birmingham Rep till 1 March.
Review: Rod Dungate, 26 February 2008, Birmingham Rep.
A remarkable treat.
This production of Kafka’s astounding story is the nearest I can think of to watching a poem. There’s a haunting intangibility about the work that lingers in your imagination, prodding your memory long after you leave. Watching it, you want to weep with the characters in their tribulation, and at their powerlessness to resolve it.
There’s something else, too. We are desperate to make sense of this story . . . Why does Gregor turn into a beetle? What does the beetle represent? Yet it seems to me, the Gregor-beetle image defies meaning, goes beyond meaning. Here lies the root of the poetic feeling . . .
David Farr and Gish Orn Gardarsson, who direct, augment this feeling. The adaptation approaches, from moment to moment, dance, physical theatre, broad comedy. Nick Cave and Warren Ellis have created a gentle score that sometimes supports and sometimes heightens the play’s emotional journey.
Borkur Jonsson, in a mostly realistic set, cleverly turned Gregor’s room on its end; Gregor must hang from the furniture and clamber from one part to another. Nowhere could it be clearer that all elements merge into a powerful whole than when Mother removes all the objects from Gregor’s room to give him space. That Gregor is left with nothing to climb on, to engineer his way across, breaks your heart. He is, now, cruelly imprisoned.
Bjorn Thors expertly handles the physicality of the man-beetle; rather than acting or presenting beetle, he suggests it. It’s subtle and it’s powerful. Unnur Osp Stefansdottir is beautiful as Gregor’s sister, Grete, her change from girl to woman skilfully managed; in this strange Kafka world, Grete is very human.
This is a production for the heart and soul rather than the head, and it will touch you deeply.
Cast
Greta: Unnur Osp Stafansdottir.
Gregor: Bjorn Thors.
Mother: Elva Osk Olafsdottir.
Herr Stiefl / Herr Fischer: Jonathan McGuinness.
Father: Tom Mannion.
Direction and Adaptation: David Farr and Gisli Orn Gardarsson.
Design: Borkur Jonsson.
Lighting Design: Hartley T A Kemp.
Music Composition: Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.
Sound Design: Nick Manning.
Costume Design: Brenda Murphy.
Producer Kate McGrath.
2008-02-27 13:02:11