Review: METAMORPHOSIS, Lyric Hammersmith

Kafka’s existential creepy crawly caper is a treat for theatre makers. They have to employ all their imaginative cunning to leap over the great hurdle of convincingly breathing life into the poor humanoid insect.

Frantic Assembly’s new version, penned by Lemn Sissay, may be poetically vivid and visually mesmerising, but it is terminally plagued by dramatic inertia. Without that key ingredient, the production melts into the looming shadows. An expressionistic mess. But a beautiful one to watch unravel.

Sissay is less interested in the monster Gregor becomes and more the victim he was. The novella plunges us straight into existential terror, but here Gregor’s dejected life as an overworked travelling salesman is fleshed out before the titular metamorphosis.

He rhythmically swans in and out of a daily routine, cheerily introducing himself, as if to a new customer, as a mantra. Egged on by autocratic parents, he crashes through the door of his grime lined room crushed by the demand of endless sales targets and quotas.

Simisola Majekodunmi’s lighting design is key in conjuring a gorgeously foreboding atmosphere. Insect shadows creep across the walls, slimy greens flood the stage for Gregor’s change, psychedelic pinks spill over the walls to hurl us further into his nightmarish world where shapes and figures appear from nowhere.

As for the bug itself, Felipe Pacheco’s physically explosive performance as Gregor firmly entrenches his status as a victim. He stumbles fluidly, convulses, and swings from a dangling light. He behaves like an animal, but you can sense a palpable humanity wanting to break free beneath each spasm and shiver.  

It certainly looks the part, but the production’s lack of theatrical foundations become painfully apparent. The language is vividly wound together, you expect nothing less from Sissay, but it lacks polish. Without tight dramatic pacing it spins out of control. Kafka’s novella comes to a diminutive eighty pages. You wouldn’t think it from this that clocks in at a flabby two hours.  

Meaty but meandering monologues explore Gregor’s family’s perspectives. Sister Greta naively dreams of fame. Gregor’s parents’ cruel morality is given a fairytale backstory. Naturally they are all insects crushed by the system that forces them to scurry and squabble to survive. But the poetry labours the point over and over, diminishing any dramatic magnetism that the performers have conjured. Gregor’s death is a languid whimper rather than a tragic bang.

I have no doubt that Sissay’s text reads well. But its vitality is lost in taking it from page to stage. I couldn’t wait to scuttle away.

Metamorphosis plays at Lyric Hammersmith until 2 March

Photo credit: Tristam Kenton

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