Buffalo Rising Online

Oct 10th 2006, 10:40am By Charlie Quill

Thats a story for another time, but I was reminded of that experience recently during a poignant and delightfully eerie performance of Franz Kafkas The Metamorphosis at Buffalos New Phoenix Theatre. The show's run concludes this weekend with performances Thursday-Saturday.

A haunting and somewhat absurd tale of alienation and disaffection, The Metamorphosis is the story of traveling salesman Gregor Samsa, played remarkably well by Lenny Zielkowski, who wakes up one morning and confronts the slight predicament of having been transformed into a bug some time during the previous night.

The story goes on to document the reaction of his family, who up to this point had relied on Gregors income for support, and are forced to confront and, ultimately, overcome their own fears and inadequacies, all the while steadily writing-off Gregors humanity while Gregor, meanwhile, fully conscious and still very much a coherent, rational, thinking human being on the inside, languishes in his locked bedroom and contemplates his circumstances. The Metamorphosis was first published in 1915 as a novella and is widely regarded as an existential meditation on societys view of people who reside in the margins of the norm or are otherwise in some way different.

Traditionally, the creature Gregor becomes is frequently seen literally as a cockroach or, as mentioned in the original story and in the dialogue of the New Phoenix production, a dung beetle (Kafka begins the story with the line, As Gregor Samsa woke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself in his bed, transformed into a monstrous insect).

However, translators of the original text (Kafka was German) frequently ascribe Gregors condition to Kafkas intent on illustrating the unfortunate consequences of nonconformity to conventional societal norms. So hes not really so much a bug as someone who has undergone some kind of substantially grotesque transformation that has rendered him unable to continue his role as the breadwinner. He loses his job; his family no longer recognizes him.

The New Phoenix production, adapted by Steven Berkoff and directed by Robert Waterhouse, plays this point particularly well. Zielkowskis Gregor, in a brilliant bit of physical theatrics, never visibly transforms at all (no three-hour make-up calls for this guy). His mannerisms and movements, on the other hand, change considerably. He drags himself around his room -- a monkey-bar-like theatrical contraption, a set piece that allows him to convey his new form and show off his new skills without having to put on the bug costume, literally crawling the walls, hanging upside down (affording a better view of the outside world through his window) and slithering around on his belly. Often, he lay prone, hands and feet (pincers?) in the air, looking very convincingly like a flipped beetle unable to right itself. Zielkowskis voice, at many times, it seemed, a pre-recorded play-back, presumably to create the illusion of being able to hear his thoughts, sounds, well, buggy. Think Ren from Ren and Stimpy (Steeeeempy! Oh, what Im going to do to you!).

Performances by Richard Lambert, Margo Davis, Candice Kogut, and Ray Boucher, Gregors father, mother, sister, and boss, respectively), border on the farcical, and, coupled with the foreboding lighting and general ethereal atmosphere of the set, provide a decidedly overall nightmarish countenance to the production.

Special props to the musical collaboration of Paul Kozlowski and Patrick Cain, who provided ambient sounds and music, a combination of live and prerecorded dissonance and ambient melody, and to Franklin LaVoies puppet heads, employed by Boucher during a turn as a three headed border who takes up briefly at the Samsa residence before being scared off by Gregor. This production of The Metamorphosis is well worth seeing and continues The New Phoenixs tradition of inter-disciplinary alternative theater. I would have liked to have seen it on Halloween.

The show runs through Oct. 14 at New Phoenix Theatre, 95 Johnson Park. 853-1334. www.newphoenixtheatre.com. . Show times are 8 p.m. Thursday - Saturday. Admission is $20 general, $15 students and seniors.