Metamorphosis - The Review
Date: 26th January 2008
Location: Drama Barn
Director: Alex Wright
Cast: Jamie Wilkes, Dom Allen, Danie Linsell, Tom Powis, Alex Forsyth, Niamh Walsh
Rating: * * * * 1/2
Ever since The Trial catapulted Alex Wright into campus legend last term, there have been whisperings as to how he would follow up such an original production. He answers his critics with Metamorphosis, another stage adaptation of Kafka, this time of a short story rather than a novel.
Once again, we are told not to bring large bags, and to wear comfortable shoes. Again, we are led in one by one into the Drama Barn. However, here the similarities end, and a quick look at the cast would suggest that Alex Wright is now very much part of the DramaSoc establishment, as opposed to existing primarily on the experimental fringe. DramaSoc Chair Jamie Wilkes plays the starring role of Gregor Samsa, the honest worker who turns into a beetle one night, and the obscene but hilarious Dom Allen continues his run of playing the slightly deranged older man (see Stone Cold Dead Serious and Tartuffe for examples) as Gregor’s father.
Anyone who has read Metamorphosis will tell you that it is one of the most unremittingly bleak pieces of fiction ever written. Imagine my surprise, then, to find that Wright’s production was the catalyst for random bouts of hysterical laughter. The first half hour, before Gregor transforms, was full of cartoonish grotesques feeding people crisps, pouring them coffee, caressing their faces, and in my case, stealing their shoes. The ability to inject humour into this darkest of stories was something that few would have considered, or dared, to try.
The greatest strength of the production was the impeccably choreographed sections of physical theatre. The use of scaffolding to support Wilkes as a beetle and the four chorus/grotesque characters was an inspired choice. The amount of time invested in rehearsal was palpable from the strength of the fight scene between Gregor and his father, which flung the two characters around the stage but never threatened to spill over into the audience sitting cross-legged and open mouthed beside the action.
It is difficult to pick out a particular actor or actress who transcended the talents of all the others, but this is in part due to Wright’s very democratic spreading of roles and acting, whereby the cast is onstage constantly and is in character and interacting with the audience at all times. This can be somewhat overwhelming, as the set was also sprawled around the barn so that absolute attention was required of the viewer of this savage spectacle. However, when pressed I would say that Alex Forysth’s melancholic outbursts: “We didn’t dance like this in prison!” seemed to generate the most laughter, and of the major characters, Jamie Wilkes, purely for his unbending characterisation of the role of Gregor and the physicality of the beetle, were of particular note.
Wright has set the bar far higher than was ever expected of those who directed or acted in the barn, and with Tapestry, The Trial and now Metamorphosis to his name, the sometimes staid and stubbornly pseudointellectual old guard of DramaSoc should be well aware by now that they have been left to gather dust with the rest of the out of date props in the cupboard.
Riticulated
Now, this is an excellent review: opinionated, forthright and with a sense of context behind it. Congratulations.
Personally, I don’t agree with everything: I thought the dances (though intricate) outstayed their welcome and robbed the performance of much of its pace. I was also a little non-plussed by the conclusion: was Gregor’s betrayal by his sister meant to be shocking or predictable? As it was we had little evidence of her actions previously on which to base any judgement.
That said, I agree that the level of physical effort shown by the cast was impressive throughout, and that the injections of comedy were well judged. My question - When does a member of the “DramaSoc establishment” metamorphose into the “stubbornly intellectual old guard”?