Metamorphosis (Frantic Assembly) - Lyric Hammersmith / Tour

[david]

I am watching this at the Liverpool Playhouse on Wednesday. Having a quick look on the Frantic Assembly site, it looks like the tour starts up here. I will post my thoughts on the show It is also my first time seeing a Frantic Assembly production. 

[theatreliker]

I saw it at Curve in September. It won't be everyone's cup of tea but is a good production and is given the typical Frantic Assembly treatment of combining images, movement and text. It's refreshing in that it will probably reinvent the play after years of students studying the Berkoff version.
The lead actor is terrific.

[alicechallice]

We ended up avoiding this in Worthing a couple of weeks back because I read a couple of lacklustre reviews (2* in the Grauniad) and wished I'd known about the positive ones now :-(

[david]

A few thoughts about last night's visit. I had never read the story or seen a Frantic Assembly production prior to last night's viewing so really didn't know what to expect. Despite having a few head scratching moments trying to work out what was going on (we had a few college groups in last night so seemed quite bemused by what they were watching by their conversations during the interval), I will say I actually ended up enjoying this one both in terms of the text and the physical theatre from Frantic Assembly.

With a run time of around 2.5hrs (Act 1 was around 70 minutes, Act 2 around 1hr with a 20 min interval), director
Scott Graham and his team have done a really good job with this production. I thought the cast of 5 did a really great job in bringing writer Lemmy Sissay's adaption to the stage. With plenty of monologues and reflective moments for the cast to get their teeth into they did seem to slow the pace down at times.

The bleak 1970's angular and slanted style box bedroom set (Jon Bausor), video design (Ian William Galloway),lighting design (Simisola Majekodumi) combined brilliantly with Helen Skiera’s atmospheric sound design including soundscapes) for me were stunning and drew you instantly into this stark disturbing, almost nightmarish world with Gregor's transformation and his relationship with his dysfunctional family who only view him as a source of money and nothing else.

For the small cast, they are definitely worth a watch. Felipe Pacheco as Gregor was for me worth the ticket money alone. The physicality as he moved in and around the stage and hanging from bars, lights and other bits of furniture was amazing and coupled with believable and emotionally powerful acting. No special effects or make up are used in the actors metamorphosis  into the creature. As for the other cast, Joe Lyton provided both a chilling Chief Clerk and a bit of comedy as the lodger in Act 2. As the parents, Troy Glasgow and Louise Mai Newberry have a wonderful on stage chemistry and provide some nice and welcomed light relief in this show. Hannah Sinclair Robinson portrayal of sister Grete is both sympathetic and sensitive as navigates her relationships both with her parents and with Gregor.

Overall, there was plenty to enjoy with this surreal play and I will definitely be keeping an eye out for Frantic Assembly productions in the future.

Rating = 4 stars.

[jacob]

I felt this was a bit miserable tonight, Morse sums my thoughts up perfectly in this article. www.bristol247.com/culture/theatre/review-metamorphosis-bristol-old-vic-theatre-can-be-so-much-more-than-this/#:~:text=drags%2C%20and%20Gregor's%20final%20expiry,of%20acting%2C%20movement%20and%20dance

Some incredible movements from Pacheco but without him the show would be even worse. The whole script is vastly different from the original and draws mainly on the effects of capitalism and the negatives stereotyped male role in society too. This I didn’t mind, but by the second act it was a mess of repeated lines within monologues and a lack of any more exciting visuals. The top roof of the bedroom contorts and pulls the fabric walls with it which was engaging, but there was nowhere to go after that. We don’t even see Gregor transform into the beetle / cockroach but only get one moment of a bug silhouette with the chairs, before he convulses and climbs for the rest of the show. The connotations of incest and sex were just confusing and every character became very flat by the second act. Dialogue was laughable in the wrong ways towards the end…

[mkb]

I saw this at the Coventry Belgrade last month (Thursday 25 January evening), and was disappointed. The trademark Frantic Assembly movement works, and the lead is good, but otherwise it goes on far too long, and political metaphors are muddled. I was a little bored I'm afraid. I've enjoyed previous interpretations.

Two stars.

Act 1: 19:34-20:33
Act 2: 20:55-21:52

It was nice to see the Stalls full, mainly with sixth-form students. I hope this didn't put them off theatre!

The evening was miserably rounded off discovering that I, and several other theatregoers, had received parking tickets. It seems Coventry City Council have decided to charge 24/7 in a move little known outside the city, and which the Belgrade did not see fit to warn patrons about in advance emails. Lesson is, even if you park somewhere regularly, always walk up the road to the pay machine to check the regulations haven't changed. Don't assume any changes will be posted at the side of the parking bays.