Metamorphosis
Kafka’s 6-legged nightmare comes to The Lowry…
Metamorphosis
A Lyric Hammersmith and Vesturport Theatre Production By Franz Kafka
Adapted and directed by David Farr and Gislí Örn Gardarsson
Music by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis
The Lowry, Thu 14 – Sat 16 February 2008
One of the most influential writers of the last century, Franz Kafka, has been billed as the poster boy for twentieth-century alienation. At The Lowry from Thu 14 February, Metamorphosis is his painfully funny story about a seemingly ordinary family, where horrible things happen without anyone noticing. The evocative musical score is created by Nick Cave and fellow Bad Seed, Warren Ellis, to reflect the melancholy of the story.
Franz Kafka wrote Metamorphosis in 1912 while living a dreary life as an insurance clerk with his parents in a stuffy and small Prague apartment. It tells the story of a young cloth salesman, Gregor Samsa, also living with his family in a similar apartment, who wakes one morning to find himself inexplicably transformed into a dung beetle. The show explores the fear of being excluded both from family and society, the suffering of ‘teenage’ alienation and the struggle to conform.
This hugely acclaimed production from the Lyric Hammersmith’s artistic director, David Farr, and the brilliant Icelandic company Vesturport combines a mind-bending, gravity-defying split level set, a mesmerising pre-recorded score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis and daring aerial physicality.
Posted on Friday, 01 February 2008 under Press Theatre Press