Fantastical Aerial Tale Launches At Playhouse

The unremarkable life of the Samsas is turned upside down when their son, Gregor, emerges one morning inexplicably transformed into a monstrous insect. As revulsion turns to resentment, Gregor finds himself increasingly at odds with the rest of his family…

Franz Kafka is considered to be one of the most influential writers of the last century. Although virtually unknown in his lifetime, his unique body of writing, most of it incomplete and published posthumously, has become famed as an influential artistic expression of existential angst. Metamorphosis, one of his few completed works, is a darkly comic and profoundly moving expression of the grotesque alienation of modern man.

Metamorphosis is brought to Liverpool by Iceland's Vesturport Theatre and the Lyric Hammersmith, which hosted the production's critically and commercially triumphant debut run last year. The script has been adapted for the stage by the Lyric's Artistic Director David Farr and Vesturport Theatre's Gísli Örn Gardarsson.

David Farr was appointed Artistic Director at the Lyric Hammersmith in 2005, where he has adapted and directed The Magic Carpet, Julius Caesar, The Odyssey and Ramayana.

Gislí Örn Gardarrsson's Vesturport Theatre's credits in the UK include Woyzeck at the Barbican and Romeo and Juliet at the Young Vic. NickCave and Warren Ellis have performed together for many years as part of "NickCave and the Bad Seeds" and composed the score for the recent film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. They have previously worked with Vesturport Theatre on Wozyeck. -- www.everymanplayhouse.com