Skidmore?s fresh take on Kafka?s Metamorphosis

The Skidmore Theater Department will present The Metamorphosis, a new stage adaptation of Franz Kafka?s 1915 novella about a man who wakes one morning to find himself transformed into a gigantic insect. The Metamorphosis will be performed Thursday through Saturday, April 16?19, in Bernhard Theater.  

Performances will begin at 8 p.m. except the Sunday matinee, which will start at 2 p.m. Tickets are $10 for general admission, and $7 for students and senior citizens. For information and reservations, call the theater box office at 518-580-5439.

Kafka?s surreal story was adapted for the Skidmore stage by Lary Opitz, professor and chair of the College?s theater department, who also directed the production. Set in Prague in the early 20th century, The Metamorphosis explores the terror and the dark humor of Kafka?s story with an approach Opitz describes as  ?slapstick tragedy.?    

The spring mainstage production features 10 student actors, including Alexandar Dayan ?11 as Gregor Samsa, the ordinary young man whose unexpected transformation changes his life. The play?s other characters include Samsa?s parents, played by Meredith Hackman  and Christopher Jacobsen (both ?10); his violinist sister Grete (Alexandra Klausner ?10); Samantha Widder ?10 as the family?s  maid; Brandon O?Sullivan ?11 as a chief clerk; Eleanor Smokler ?11 as a surly charwoman, and Christopher Iredale, Giancarlo Osaben, and Alexander Kraft (all ?11) as lodgers. The multilevel set designed by Skidmore senior Jenna Carino features muted colors and a weirdly angled post-transformation bedroom around which the ?insectivized? hero is doomed to clamber.

Kafka?s original tale centers on Samsa, an industrious traveling salesman locked into a boring job he endures in order to support his family, pay off his parents? debts, and send his sister to music school?until the morning of his fateful metamorphosis.  Widely taught, analyzed, and critiqued, Kafka?s classic tale of the quintessential outsider has been adapted for stage and film, and has served as a cultural touchstone for animation, television, and even rock and roll music?one American rock band is called Gregor Samsa.

Opitz had long wanted to stage the story, which he ?encountered when quite young and found hysterically funny and terrifying at the same time, configured around the theme of guilt.? His adaptation focuses on ?how one deals with personal guilt, or assumes the role of scapegoat and is destroyed,? said Opitz, adding, ?Every death is a rebirth, so Gregor Samsa?s spirit is reborn, but to what end?  We?re leaving it ambiguous.?