The Revolutions 360° cohort, comprising three classes from the Theater, English, and History departments at Bryn Mawr, has been hard at work this semester, collaboratively shaping their upcoming theatrical production of ‘The Metamorphosis’. Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with the production’s director, Bryn Mawr theater department professor Catharine Slusar, about the inspiration behind doing ‘The Metamorphosis’ and the group’s creative process of adaptation from a “collage” of different sources.
Catharine first had the idea for a Revolutions 360° last year, after attending an event in Philadelphia featuring the historical filmmaker Ken Burns. Particularly inspired by his documentary filmmaking on revolution, she began to think deeply about the idea of the arts as creating change. After recruiting fellow cohort leaders Bethany Schneider in the English department and Anita Kurimay in the History department, the group swiftly came together around this central query of revolution. Fast forwarding to this fall semester, the Revolutions 360° has been deeply involved in collaboratively crafting their piece, ‘The Metamorphosis,‘ as a culmination of their work thus far.
One of the most classic pieces of literature to come out of the Czech Republic, Franz Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis’ exemplifies how art can be used for conveying revolutionary ideas with its themes of alienation and absurdity. Additionally, Catharine noted Kafka’s routine of writing in German whilst speaking Czech in his public life; this points to a larger theme of translation and multilingualism that the production also explores. During the group’s experiential travels to Prague during this past fall break, many ideas were gathered whilst exploring the city and experiencing its very multilingual, international culture.
When approaching the process of The Metamorphosis and its adaptation into a play, Catharine read two different preexisting play adaptations of the story— one by Stephen Berkoff and one by UK theater company Frantic Assembly— but neither of these felt quite complete. So, she decided instead to create an open adaptation, wherein the 360° students would participate in shaping the production over the course of the semester. Given that the book is in the public domain, excerpts from the text can be isolated and “collaged” into the script of the Bryn Mawr adaptation. Additionally, Catharine has used excerpts from students’ writing reflections throughout the semester to inform the adaptation of the play.
This “collaging” process of adaptation has resulted in a particularly creative, thoughtful script: in just the first scene, multiple languages are spoken to present the various meanings that emerge from the process of translation, and show how all of these meanings change the story slightly. For the cohort, some of the central questions that have arisen during their group process of adaptation have been the deep queries of “what is language?” and “what does it mean to be transformed?”
If this method of adaptation is intriguing to you, be sure to catch a performance of the Revolutions 360° production of Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis’ either this week (November 14, 15, 16) or next week (November 20, 21, 22)— all performances are at 7:30 PM!
