A Bugz Life

Posted October 11th, 2005 by jhuny

STC Blueprints and The Malthouse Theatre co-presents an Australian adaptation of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis.

All I knew about the work was that it was about a guy who wakes up to find that he's turned into a bug. Who knew that he meant that the character ACTUALLY turns into a bug, it's not a metaphor for the way he feels or the way his life is going. He actually becomes a creepy crawly thing that leaves goo all over the walls. And here's me only just dealing with the idea of a metaphor, after this weekend's weekly horoscope in The Weekend Australian that said that I have just found the perfect pair of jeans, that fit perfectly, that has the perfect butt and the perfect crotch... (JPB tried to explain to me that the jeans are a metaphor but I just wanted to go shopping...)

So anyway, it's an absurd idea, turning into a bug overnight. I spent a good few minutes trying to decide which bits of the work were similarly odd but everything seemed quite familiar (if a couple of degrees off reality). What, the family are not intrigued about how a man can turn into a bug, they are just concerned with how gross he is. We could have been watching some bizarre parody of Neighbours, there was quite alot of commentary about suburban Australia in this adaptation. Except that there's this bug.

The bug was pretty impressive, though. Sorry, don't know his name. He didn't REALLY look like a bug but he had a certain bug-like quality when he moved around the room. There was a little bit of physical theatre thrown in to complete the effect as well, nothing too energetic, just a couple of precarious balances and wall-climbing. Poor thing, really, what happened to that character. The breadwinner one day, ugly and repulsive the next. We'd expect people to have a breakdown when being the sole provider for such a dysfunctional family, but not to turn into a bug.

Anyway, it was funny and manic. And clever. Not being too familiar with the original story I'm not sure what exactly is adapted bits, though it would be safe to presume that the original family didn't talk about taking the bridge to Auckland. Neither did the daughter hope to make it to the Australian Idol final twelve. But was the original mother so obsessed with cleaning because of her asthma? (the theory goes that there's a link between hyper-cleanliness and the asthma *epidemic*, and the image of the mother keeping her suburban house clean with Enjo and all sorts of cleaning products is so familiar) Certainly the original family themselves were just as repugnant as these modern-day suburbanites that are able to completely reject a member of their family just because he has become grotesque and unintelligible, so obsessed they are with the superficial.

Two thumbs up.

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