Alex: Metamorphosis ‘an hallucinatory thunderbolt’

Metamorphosis, which opened in Toronto yesterday, has attracted international attention because of the staging of its unusual plot.

A story of transformation, Metamorphosis strikes like an hallucinatory thunderbolt, imagining a human mutating into an insect.

Co-writer and director Gisli Orn Garddarsson says the play is mainly about a family with a secret. “That’s kind of like a core universal theme that we all recognize. And to me that is the main point of what we’re trying to do.”

“You have this family and they have this huge disappointment in their son, without being able to put a finger on what it is that has happened to him.”

This bizarrely comic drama unfolds with humor that is rooted in the play’s absurd and outrageous situations. Audiences are forced to internalize, sharing the dilemma of an ordinary man drowning in dark realities.

Bjorn Thors plays Gregor/The Bug. “The horror is lying in what the human being is capable of, what we do in situations when we meet something which is strange or uncomfortable or unknown to us.”

Thors’ physicality gets kudos not only for his acting but also for his bravo aerial display.

This interpretation of the classic 1912 Franz Kafka novella has gained world-wide praise, and stays with you long after the final curtain comes down.

Metamorphosis continues at Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre through March 9th.