“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant insect.” So begins Franz Kafka’s famous novella The Metamorphosis, adapted into a symbolic production by British playwright, actor, and director Steven Berkoff. Honoring Kafka’s original seminal work, Berkoff dramatizes the dehumanization of an identity built on labor. 

Gregor Samsa, a young man with his whole future ahead of him, is a traveling salesman. He is stuck working for a cruel and demanding clerk in order to pay off his father’s debt as well as support his parents and younger sister Greta. Gregor has ambitions for the future but all hopes are dashed when he transfigures into a massive insect.

The Samsa family must adjust to Gregor’s new state, and they approach him in different ways. Through stylized movement and staging, Berkoff’s Metamorphosis honors Kafka’s original work in a compelling production.