I remember I had to read Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka for my english class in high school, so I was pleasantly surprised when I found out about a new play based on the book that is happening at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, as a part of the 2010 Next Wave Festival.
For those of you who haven’t read the book, it is about Gregor Samsa (left), a young man who wakes up one morning to find that he has morphed into a bug. The rest of the book deals with how he interacts with those around him, particularly his family, after his metamorphosis. The plot may seem a bit silly, and I admit that I did not want to read the rest of it after the first sentence, but it really is a touching and emotional book, that actually made me cry.
I’m curious to see how the emotion of the story will be transferred from the book to the stage, and how realistic the special effects will be. Looking at the website, it looks like a great production that is worth seeing. Performances began yesterday (Nov 30) and run until December 5th.
Kafka stories have an unusual ability to take a bizarre premise and then eventually draw you in. You discover that you are suddenly extremely sympathetic to this character in these strange circumstances. Other writer writers who can draw you into strange circumstances include Chekhov and Gogol. Here is a short and wonderful story by Gogol called “The Overcoat.”
http://www.classicreader.com/book/2026/1/