By Anita Foxall.
“One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect,” is the first line in Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis.
Frantic Assembly brought their fantastic stage adaptation (written by poet Lemn Sissay) to the MAST, and they took us on a fully intense journey.
The set is grey, the music is dark and sinister and that is even before the play starts. So, the scene is set, and we are taken to Gregor Samsa’s world, where he wakes up every morning announcing to the world that he is Mr Samsa and he ‘loves fabric’. We see it as he slowly gets devoured by routine, debt, missed daily targets. The fight within him becomes visibly physical and painfully emotional.
His employer, the Chief Clerk, a mysterious character who utters no words but the recorded threat ‘Mr. Samsa, we need a word’,’ gradually becomes a more real presence and his voice heard loud and clear. Gregor has no way of escaping his imposing presence, even if he relentlessly tries to reassure his family of his alleged successful professional achievements.
As Gregor’s struggle increases, he becomes repulsive to the other characters, he finally becomes the insect. Neither his family not the Chief Clerk can stand or understand the creature he became, and they charge at him with chairs, and the chairs become his insect body.
The play is an harmonious symphony of dialogue and choreography. The words become physical in the actors’ bodies as the story is told with movement and dance.
Then in the second half we are submerged in the deepest darkest suffering of the insect, of Gregor’s ill mental health. He hangs from the ceiling, from the lampshade, from the bed, and he crawls and drags himself on the floor.
We also get to know the family’s secrets as each member delivers their beautiful, yet painful, dialogue. The anguished sister, desperately trying to feed her insect brother; the father dogmatically shouting the ‘the Samsa’s need no pity and no help,’ the mother reminiscing and grieving a long-lost past. All saying so much about how they view the insect, the big monster that Gregor’s mental health became.
Felipe Pacheco’s performance is outstanding and so challenging both physically and emotionally, but all other four cast members bring equal powerful performances to the stage. As for the text, you can hear the poetry in the words, in the rhythm, in the movements which were brought by the immense skill of one of the best contemporary poets in England, Lemn Sissay.
Back in the early 20th Century, Kafka made is friend Max Brod promise he would destroy all his work after he died, which he obviously didn’t. His anguish for being assimilated into the routine of the money-making world, his difficult relationship with his father and, above all, his disconnection and outsider feeling were evident and still so meaningful nowadays.
I therefore would like to believe that Franz Kafka would be pleased that a magnificent poet adapted his most famous novella to the stage, and that this amazing theatre company brought to it to life before our eyes.
- Tickets for Metamorphosis (26 – 30 September 2023) are available from the MAST Mayflower Studios Box Office on 02380 711811 or mayflowerstudios.org.uk
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Interview: Frantic Assembly bringing Metamorphosis to the stage