Powerful new production of Kafka’s Metamorphosis

SussexWorld

The award-winning Frantic Assembly return to Worthing and Guildford with a powerful new production of Kafka’s Metamorphosis.

Transcript

00:00 Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor for Sussex Newspapers. Lovely

00:05 to be speaking to Scott Graham this morning, Artistic Director of Frantic Assembly. We're

00:10 heading back to Worthing with the first original show since the pandemic, since 2019. And you've

00:17 chosen Kafka's Metamorphosis. And as you were saying just now, there are uncertain parallels,

00:21 aren't there? Someone trapped in their room and a danger to their family. It has echoed

00:27 in recent times, doesn't it? Certainly. Yeah, yeah. And not deliberately. But, you know,

00:32 as you start to explore that world, you realise, oh, we've been living that for a while. You

00:38 know, we're all very much aware of our dangers to the people we're most intimate with, you

00:45 know, that transference. And we've all probably spent that time locked in a room, not able

00:53 to come out and see the people that we love, because we are carrying this bug. We've been

01:00 transformed into something dangerous. So is that parallel almost accidental in the choosing

01:05 of the piece? Yeah, yes, I think so. The last thing I wanted to do was create a COVID play.

01:13 But I think it's just a resonance that we carry with us. We see the world through that

01:17 experience at the moment. Yeah, so not at all deliberate. There was enough interest

01:26 within the... Well, absolutely. It's one of the great classics of German or world literature,

01:30 isn't it? And I think it's also such a huge challenge. It's like saying, explain me what's

01:35 happening here? What's your take on how do we explain the fact this chap, one morning

01:40 from his troubled sleep turns into a huge beetle on the floor? Yeah, or vermin. And

01:48 I think that's the kind of literal explanation of what happens one night. But I was much

01:55 more interested in what's the build up? You know, that night might be the straw that broke

02:00 the camel's back. And I was keen to explore the transformation as an accumulation of pressure

02:12 upon a person who is a breadwinner, and who is starting to fail at work, and is trying

02:19 to pay off debt, and is not quite managing to do that. So the intensity of that experience

02:26 just gets harder and harder. And all the while, they're having to mask the fact that they're

02:32 struggling. And I see that as very current. You know, people are in awe.

02:35 So that transformation is the externalization of something inside, snapping them.

02:40 Yeah, absolutely. So the transformation, I thought there was a logic to it. There's a

02:50 history within this family of debt. And Gregor has taken it on. And that is exhausting. That

02:57 can be debilitating. And if it is debilitating, it turns you from breadwinner to burden. You

03:02 know, how you are perceived changes, your relationship with your family changes. And

03:07 it's desperate.

03:08 That's fascinating. We should mention this is a particular adaptation by someone rather

03:12 special.

03:13 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And, again, that's a huge part of the ambition to do this was

03:20 to find a collaborator that would bring something different to it. And I approached Len Sissé,

03:29 who's not known as a playwright, but as a brilliant poet, because I thought that poetic

03:35 voice, that lyricism could be a way of making the whole story feel fresh to me. I didn't

03:43 want to do what I'd seen before. As much as I respect those previous productions, it had

03:49 to feel new. And that's the way it's turned out. And Len approached it in exactly the

03:55 same way. We both sat, chatted about it and just went, you know, how are we going to do

04:01 this? Which I think is a really healthy way to look at it. Start from nothing and build

04:05 it up based on what we wanted to say, what we wanted to find and explore, rather than

04:12 cut and paste from a novella.

04:13 Brilliant. Well, it sounds fascinating. It's in Worthing from October the 3rd to the 7th

04:20 and it tours through into next year, doesn't it? Scott, really lovely to speak to you.

04:24 Congratulations on the production and looking forward to catching up with it. Thank you.

04:27 Thank you. Looking forward to coming to Worthing.

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