PLAY REVIEW: ‘Metamorphoses’ Written by Sami Ibrahim, Laura Lomas and Sabrina Mahfouz; directed by Shana Cooper; choreographed by Erika Chong Shuch | At Seattle Rep. through Feb. 26 | Tickets $59–$79
At first, I couldn’t tell whether the set of “Metamorphoses” (written by Sami Ibrahim, Laura Lomas and Sabrina Mahfouz, directed by Shana Cooper and choreographed by Erika Chong Shuch) was a pirate ship or a living room. A round is inlaid into the stage, strong cords latch to the ground and, unbeknownst to me, from the underbelly to the wings, multiple worlds lie hidden in wait, all to showcase the tellings of the poet Ovid.
A quick rundown of Ovid and his work, as delivered at the top of the show: He’s an ancient Roman poet who wrote an epic poem that somehow detailed not only all of the few myths that I knew but also the ones I forgot I knew and a few that I only know now. “Metamorphoses” offers a telling that trims the excess linguistic load for those who have never heard the tales and a retelling in modern tongue for return guests to Ovid’s words.
“Metamorphoses” began as a group project — on day one of an artistic residency at the Globe in London, but a group project nonetheless. Echoes of that work mentality come to life between the four-person ensemble. Kjerstine Rose Anderson and Darragh Kennan team up as godly power-couple Juno and Jupiter, while Meme García stands upstage to transform Anderson into the Philomela to their Procne. Nike Imoru waits in the wings.
How each myth is told varies widely; what begins as a candlelit summoning of creative power morphs into monologue, dialogue, silence, violence and song. García, whom I loved in “Teenage Dick,” strums an instrument and sings in both English and Spanish. Anderson plays an eerie electric guitar solo over a changing stage. These presentations are each tellings of a myth, and herein lies the function of the show: “Metamorphoses” is about the way in which we tell stories and how, despite the language or social context around us changing constantly, those ways only shift and never disappear. Each story about a character’s great change in age, status, power or gender is only one step away from being directly relevant today. When Imoru, as Medea, stepped out and addressed the audience, asking if anyone related to her frustration of being unrecognized, the teens in the back and I felt compelled to call out, “So true, bestie!” and “Say it!”
In addition to each story detailing a transformation of some kind, the set itself shifted slowly from something tidy and proper to uneven and disorganized. What appears to be a plain fabric scrim in pre-show becomes a projecting surface and a conduit of light. Actors create strobes with handheld lights, move furniture around and latch hanging cords onto pieces they need flown away. This is the second time in a few weeks that I’ve seen this method used at the Rep — I saw it just the week before in “I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter.” To be honest, the technique was distracting there, as props were shakily flown in and out, but in “Metamorphoses,” the actors themselves utilize the cords to tell their stories, and the act of flying out their props having very explicit narrative function were a much better match for such obvious technology.
The design aspect that impressed me the most in my viewing of “Metamorphoses” worked hand in hand with my favorite performance: Nike Imoru as Arachne. The story of Arachne is one I have heard but hardly remembered … something about a weaver and a spider. Imoru approached the audience like an old friend and caught us up on what had happened between her and Minerva, the goddess of war, wisdom and crafts, all while twirling locs around her fingers and arms that were longer than she was tall. The relationship between Imoru’s performance and Shelby Rogers’ wigs artisanship is one of the reasons I still believe in the magic of the theater: those times when designers and performers find such synergy that the power and impact of a show or scene is based entirely on the bridges they build between their disciplines. Imoru’s performance was awe-inducing and captivating like few others I’ve seen lately. I would go back to “Metamorphoses” just to see the Arachne story again.
I would be flattered at the possibility of anyone following my writing, but those who remember my review in December of “Not/Our Town” may recall that I am testing the mettle of my feelings on adaptation and classic scripts this year. Since I’m abstaining only from Shakespeare’s work until 2024, Ovid and his contemporaries are still fair game.
But the same questions generated by my Shakes-less challenge apply to “Metamorphoses”: Why do we adapt, and how do modernizations, adaptations and otherwise affirmations of classic and cornerstone works interact with theater practitioners and the industry as a whole? While the attitudes in “Metamorphoses” are dated — and the actors and text recognize these as visibly as possible — the frustrations that form misogynist, ignorant tendencies are just as real today as they were at the time of writing. Queen goddess Juno’s dissatisfaction with her husband, Jupiter, juxtaposed to Jupiter’s assumptions about women’s sexuality could have both been in matching tweets yesterday and felt realistic.
However, one of the guiding questions left in the show’s program, by Dr. Stephanie McCarter, professor of Classics, evokes for me a bitter truth about the selection of “Metamorphoses” by the Rep. When McCarter asks, “Who gets to speak in our society … and how does that intersect with power?”, she indicates the roles of women in classic plays and the theater industry in their aftermath.
At the end of the show, despite a gender-expansive cast and sweeping array of roles, Ovid was centered. No reflection or discussion was awarded to the self-aware ensemble — the lights simply went out, leaving Ovid himself at the center of my focus. The truths of “Metamorphoses” are evidently relevant and written about today in countless plays. The selection in the Rep’s season speaks strongly to a prioritization of marketability over innovation. An in-text or post-show discussion of the role of classics and adaptation would have stretched the comfort zone of the Rep clientele in a way that I have grown to yearn for from theaters with such high influence. Instead, I felt disappointed by the resounding sense of audience satisfaction and of comfort in the classics without much critical thinking beyond the surface of the text. There is room to dig so much further in “Metamorphoses,” and I fear that, for many people, the few moments of interaction and intense themes felt like enough.
When you go see “Metamorphoses,” read the interview with Dr. McCarter and ask yourself who is centered. Not only as you are suggested to, as you question whose stories are told, but also ask it multiple times to multiple aspects: Who in my life is centered in each story? Who in the audience is centered in the telling? Who in the world?
When we tell stories, we can’t reach everyone; I doubt there’s a single story that ever could. But our choices — whose stories we choose to tell, how we tell them and who we tell them with — all change the meaning.
Read more of the Feb. 22-28, 2023 issue.