THE METAMORPHOSIS
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The most ballyhooed adaptation of Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis in recent years was the one penned by bad-boy Brit Steven Berkoff, who used the story as a vehicle for a Marxist critique of the plight of the working class in England. It gave Mikhail Baryshnikov and Roman Polanski the opportunity to flop around on various American and European stages as Gregor Samsa, Kafka’s legendary man-turned-insect. And the idea behind Thomas Wawzenek’s adaptation for Transient Theatre is not a bad one. He places Samsa and his family smack-dab in the middle of Middle America, where the dull, daily grind of working one’s way toward the American dream has turned everybody into parasites.
Gregor’s unemployed parents and sister have fed for years off the fruits of his piddling job in sales, and after he’s transformed into a giant insect, they’re far more concerned with their own survival than with his grim state. Mr. Samsa recites homilies to convince his son to return to work, while Mrs. Samsa remains largely ineffectual. Gregor’s sister Grete pities him at first but soon realizes that it will be quite difficult for a bug to pay her way through music school.
