Metamorphosis

Published Wednesday 16 January 2008 at 13:20 by Mark Shenton

Only the other week we were implored, in the big Act I curtain song to the revival of the musical La Cage Aux Folles, “Why not try to see things from a different angle?” And just as the Menier’s production of that show did precisely that compared to the bloated spectacle that originally came to the London Palladium, so does this version of Kafka’s allegory of personal alienation, Metamorphosis - quite literally so.

In this co-production with Iceland’s Vesturport Theatre, directors David Farr (of the Lyric) and Gisli Orn Gardarsson (of Vesturport) and their designer Borkur Jonsson have daringly skewed our perspective of Gregor as this diligent travelling salesman undergoes a frightening transformation into a beetle in his upstairs bedroom. While the family room downstairs is viewed head-on, we watch Gregor as if from above, as if we’re ourselves a fly on the wall, enhancing his - and our - alienation, too.

It also forces the actor playing Gregor - Bjorn Thors, replacing Gardarsson, who originally played the role when this production premiered in 2006 - into one of the most extraordinarily physical performances in London, as he trampolines off the floor to cling to the walls, or is suspended over the stage.

As Thors conjures a series of virtuoso theatrical images, he is also genuinely affecting. But he is only part of the shattering impact of this production that slowly gathers an overwhelming sense of accumulating dread as Gregor’s family, including even his loving sister, turn on him and even forget to feed him. It is at once both starkly beautiful and fiercely sad, tenderly underscored in the hauntingly evocative music of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.