THE METAMOPRHOSIS – A PLAY
Synopsis
The Metamorphosis – A Play
Adapted by: E. Thomalen
Poetic Drama
Characters: 6 M 4 F plus Mime and Klezmer musician
We, as humans, experience metamorphoses, although we don’t usually think of it that way. We experience a physical metamorphosis at puberty, in pregnancy, at involution, and in old age. We also experience psychological transformations (metamorphoses): entering college, entering the workplace, becoming a parent, coming out of the “closet”, emerging from a pandemic, leaving a mental hospital, leaving prison. We both wish for, and fear, such changes. In our quotidian life: we often check the mirror before we leave the house or enter a room. We feel relieved when nothing strange appears to our eyes. Do we unconsciously fear that, while we were not paying attention, some force has changed us; have we somehow become an “ugly bug”? Did some dissociated wish, or conflict, or idea, or identity (that we believed our rational mind had kept under control) suddenly make its appearance, taken us over? Kafka, by teasing out the madness of it, defuses, but also exposes, this hidden fear. Perhaps it remains in our dreams… in our poetry and music and what they have to tell us. We smile at the story of the frog who turns into a prince, we know it is a fairy tale. The story of the salesman who turns into a dung beetle makes us laugh, but worries us. See what you think.