Overview
The Metamorphosis - A Play is a dramatic adaptation of Kafka’s novella told as a play within a play. Kafka’s surreal story, first published in 1915, is of a man who finds himself transformed one morning into an insect. There is a tragicomic dimension to this absurdist tale but also a deep truth. As humans we do experience physical metamorphoses: at puberty, in pregnancy, at involution, and in old age. Psychologically we also experience such changes: entering college, entering the workplace, becoming a parent, coming out of the closet, emerging from a pandemic, leaving a mental hospital, leaving a prison. Anxiety about change is seen in our daily life as well: we check the mirror before we leave the house or enter a room. We feel relieved when nothing too strange appears to our eyes. Do we unconsciously fear we have, perhaps, become the ugly bug? Kafka, by teasing out the absurdity of it, defuses this hidden fear. But perhaps it stays in our dreams… See what poetry and music have to tell us.