Metamorphosis
Court Theatre
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Playwrights and theater groups must be drawn to Kafka for the same reason that high school teachers are–he looks simple and his prose, even in translation, is crisp and spare. For all the tragedy in his tales, the writer remains serene, almost comic. With their fantastic settings and beleaguered protagonists, Kafka’s stories would appear to be tailor-made for the theater. Which may explain why two of the city’s better theater companies have independently decided to stage two of Kafka’s better-known works–and why each production disappoints, despite brilliant staging, terrific acting, and, in one case, a score by a major composer.
Using Steven Berkoff’s eccentric but serviceable adaptation of Kafka’s “Metamorphosis,” director David Catlin fills the production with amazing stage pictures. Some are surreal, in a mildly Magritte-like way, as when Gregor Samsa’s boss shows up at his home wearing shoes that add another foot and a half to his height. And as Gregor Samsa, Lawrence E. DiStasi is nothing short of astonishing. His athletic performance is a perfect marriage of Stanislavsky-style naturalism with graceful, energetic acrobatics. With not an ounce of special-effects makeup, DiStasi looks, acts, and moves like a man who has been turned into a gigantic beetle. He’s helped by Geoff Curley’s amazing set, which gives DiStasi many opportunities to scurry up a wall or across a ceiling (a trick he must have learned from his wife, Sylvia Hernandez, a veteran circus performer and one of the teachers at the Actor’s Gymnasium, the school of circus arts DiStasi runs in Evanston). When Berkoff’s adaptation calls for DiStasi to drop the acrobatics to be onstage, front and center, playing Gregor Samsa, the good son working himself to an early grave to pay his family’s debts, DiStasi speaks his lines with power and conviction.
In telling his story about a traveler who discovers just how cruel a colonial government can become, Kafka adopts an oblique, detached, and somewhat clueless persona. Much of “In the Penal Colony” reads like a dry report written by a not very imaginative government functionary who doesn’t entirely understand what he’s reporting on. At the center of the tale is a beastly implement of torture, a device for executing criminals by repeatedly writing the law they broke on their bodies. The process takes about 12 hours; then the corpses are unceremoniously dumped into a pit.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photos/Chris Bennion/Michael Brosilow.
