Iceland’s Vesterport Theatre returns to the Next Wave Festival with the U.S. premiere of METAMORPHOSIS (photo by Eddi Jonsson)

Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St. between Ashland & Rockwell Pl.
November 30 – December 5, $25-$65 (November 30 performance reviewed)
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

In October 2008, Gísli Örn Gardarsson led the Iceland-based Vesturport Theatre in a visually stunning yet ultimately disappointing version of George Büchner’s WOYZECK at BAM, relying too heavily on flashy acrobatics by the former gymnast. Gardarsson has returned to BAM’s Next Wave Festival with a solid, more subdued production, adapting Franz Kafka’s creepy 1915 novella, THE METAMORPHOSIS. This time around, Gardarsson has collaborated with David Farr, former artistic director of the Lyric Hammersmith and currently associate director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. The two cowrote and codirected the production, with Farr concentrating primarily on the words and Gardarsson, who stars as Gregor Samsa, focusing on the play’s physicality. Börkur Jónsson’s superb set design features a bilevel stage consisting of the Samsa family’s living area and a staircase leading up to Gregor’s room, which is arranged perpendicular to the lower floor and is centered by a vertical white bed surrounded by a chair, a plant, a lamp, and a series of hand grips, all of which allow Gardarsson to creep and crawl around the space like an imprisoned animal. As the play opens, Lucy (Kelly Hunter) and Herman Samsa (Ingvar E. Sigurdsson) are at the breakfast table with their daughter, Greta (Nina Dögg Filippusdóttir, Gardarsson’s real-life wife), a violin prodigy. Their movements are all strictly regimented, a model of Eastern European efficiency, until they realize that Gregor has not yet left for work and doesn’t appear to be in his room. Startled by this disruption in their lives, they panic until they discover that Gregor, a traveling salesman who is the family’s sole source of economic support, has transformed into a hideous insect. However, Gregor does not realize anything is wrong; he speaks normally, but his family hears only awful, unintelligible screeches. While his parents see him as a monster, Greta still considers him to be her brother and decides to take care of him, at least for a while. The family is interrupted twice by Jonathan McGuinness, who plays Fischer, a man from Gregor’s company, and Stietl, a coworker of Greta’s interested in renting a room in the Samsa household, since they now need money because Gregor is no longer working.

Gregor Samsa (Gísli Örn Gardarsson) transforms into an insect in theatrical adaptation of Kafka classic (photo by Eddi Jonsson)

Gardarsson uses no costuming or lighting tricks in turning himself into a giant bug crawling around his room and down the stairs, relying on his agility and not overdoing it. He and Farr have created well-defined characters, so the play includes several powerful, emotional moments as the relationships among the family members change. The production succeeds in capturing the essence of Kafka’s existential story, which deals with individuality, responsibility, and personal identity in a rigid, totalitarian state. Nick Cave and longtime Bad Seed Warren Ellis, who also composed the music for WOYZECK, contribute a bittersweet, spare, melancholy score rooted in acoustic instrumentation. Gardarsson and other members of the cast and crew will participate in an artist talk following the December 2 performance.