A Vesturport Theatre and Lyric Hammersmith Production

100 sold out performances to rave reviews in Iceland, Korea and the UK

“A weird and wonderful delight.” - Whatsonstage.com

“The aerial physicality [of the production] seems a match made in heaven for Kafka’s hellish creation” - The Stage

Domestic tragedy or a metaphor for totalitarian brutality? This eerie and touching Lyric Hammersmith and Vesturport production, ushers us into Franz Kafka’s world of strange juxtapositions with a sharp re-examination of his famously alarming tale of transformation and alienation.

Gregor Samsa, the sole provider for his family, emerges one morning to find himself inexplicably transformed into a gigantic insect. His family’s feelings of revulsion turn to resentment with horrifying results. Set in the 1930s, this version presages the Holocaust horrors.

It’s the weirdness you notice first – the split-level set contrasts a drab sitting room and a ceiling-eye view of Gregor’s distorted bedroom. Gardarsson bursts out of his respectable business suit and, in a virtuosic performance, scuttles over walls and ceiling, negotiating the staircase headfirst. Profoundly moving, this imaginative production combines jaw-dropping aerial physicality and a mesmerizing score of original, melancholy and haunting music by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.

Adapted by David Farr, Artistic Director of the Lyric Hammersmith, this daring production stars Vesturport actor/director Gísli Örn Gardarsson. Since its hugely successful 2006 premiere in London, Metamorphosis has enjoyed two return visits to the UK. “The triumph of the production is that it uses physical ingenuity to get to the tragic heart of Kafka’s fable.” The Guardian.

Adapted and directed by David Farr and Gísli Örn Gardarsson
Music by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis
Stage design: Borkur Jonsson
Lighting design: Hartley T A Kemp
Sound: Nick Manning
Costume design: Brenda Murphy

Metamorphosis - Meet-the-Artist (Post-performance)
20 Feb 2009

Actors and directors from Iceland and England will discuss this production with the audience.

The Vesturport Story
By Hanna Björk Valsdóttir

To Icelanders, Vesturport needs no introduction – it is Iceland's most inventive young theatre company. Since 2001, Vesturport has approached its projects with original thought. Using provocative dialogue and visuals, Vesturport presents spellbinding productions. With raw and sincere passion, the artists in the company are eager to try new things: pieces, authors and ways of producing theatre. The company has set a tone for Icelandic theatre and has succeeded in exciting young people, both on stage and off. Although shying away from the commercial, they have been immensely popular. Every project approached, however complicated, has been a victory.

The company creates theatre that is as enjoyable to perform as it is to watch, using hair-raising aerobatics to electrifying effect. Vesturport staged numerous productions in Iceland before its international success. When Gislí Örn Gardarsson staged Romeo and Juliet, the show was an immediate hit in Iceland. It travelled to London to the Young Vic Theatre and then moved to the West End. "It has all been a bit accidental, beginning with a childhood friend of mine spotting Romeo and Juliet in Iceland and simply saying: ‘Let’s get some people from the London theatre scene to see the production and try and bring it over,’" says Gardarsson. Vesturport next mounted a spectacular modern adaptation of Woyzeck, also directed and adapted by Gardarsson. On Gardarsson’s request, via email, Nick Cave wrote the music for the production bring brought former fellow Bad Seeds member Warren Ellis along for the project. Actors swam in glass tanks, flowers were shot like arrows from the ceiling, and the lead character sang a very Nick Cave-style song while swinging over audiences upside down on a trapeze. Part of the Young Genius programme at the Barbican Theatre in London, the production has been staged at the Borgarleikhúsi, Reykjavík and has also appeared in Germany, Spain, Holland and Korea.

The 2009 Hong Kong Arts Festival presents Vesturport’s production of Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, co-directed and adapted by Gardarsson and David Farr. This successful collaboration began when Gardarsson was performing in Nights at the Circus. Farr, the new artistic director of the Lyric Hammersmith, suggested they should try to do something together. "We very quickly found out that we had a common sense and taste for the theatre so it sounded interesting and appealing. We came up with different ideas of different stories to stage. The idea was originally that he would adapt a story that I would direct. Then he suggested we should do Kafka’s Metamorphosis. We decided that I should be in it, and that we should adapt it and direct it together," says Gardarsson.

This isn't the first time Gardarsson has directed and acted in the same play. In Romeo and Juliet, Gardarsson played Romeo while directing the show. "That was an actor’s driven decision to be in a production that would have certain physicality in it. I had a very strong opinion on how I would want the production to be and how the emphasis in the storytelling should be focused, which is why I chose to direct it as well. It is the same with Metamorphosis. I play the character of Gregor Samsa, and it is a character that is very challenging. I have a very strong idea on how to stage this story as a play, which is how I become a co-director. For me it is always about the collective work."

Gardarsson feels very strongly about this play. "Metamorphosis is an amazing story about people’s reactions to a situation when a family member is different from the rest of the family. It is a theme the world witnesses over and over again; when people suddenly feel that someone next to them has changed and is no longer a member of the unit. It begins small and then gets out of control. Like the Holocaust in WWII or the ethnic cleansing in Rwanda or former Yugoslavia. In Metamorphosis the son has transformed into a cockroach. Obviously a metaphor for how the family sees him. At first they try to live with it, but little by little they lose their tolerance and lock him up and mistreat him. I feel it’s an important story, a story I was very eager to tell and be involved with."

Although Vesturport has been bringing their productions to London ever since they first brought Romeo and Juliet to the Young Vic theatre, this is the first time that so many Icelanders have been involved with an essentially British theatre production. The team includes actors Gardarsson, Nina Dögg Filippusdóttir and Ingvar E. Sigurdsson, and set designer Börkur Jónsson. Farr had seen Romeo and Juliet and Woyzeck, and thought that it would be ideal first to get Filippusdóttir and Sigurdsson on board and then include some English actors. The result is a smashing success. "They are all fantastic actors. And I would probably never direct and act unless I was surrounded by such genuine artists. We all have the same aim. The mix of the actors is proving to work out really well. We bring something from our culture and the English actors bring something from their culture. So I guess it’s a learning experience for everyone. Of course, it is all in English so we are working very intensively on our English. Nevertheless, the main focus is on the story and I believe that the details of the language are secondary to everything else. I always work with Börkur on the set design. We have an excellent work relationship and get easily carried away together. We can’t wait for when we get a massive budget to spend on a set," says Gardarsson, always the optimist. The team joined forces again with Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, requesting that they compose the music for Metamorphosis. "I have been fortunate to work with great artists such as Cave and Ellis and the Bad Seeds."

Gardarsson graduated from the Icelandic Theatre School six years ago, around the same time Vesturport was created. "I seriously thought that it was great, the only shame would be that studying in Iceland would restrict the possibilities of working abroad. So obviously it has been a very exciting and much unexpected ride,” he says about Vesturport’s journey to London and other parts of the world. “At the same time it has been hard work and would not have happened without a huge effort by a lot of people.” The effort has been more than worthwhile. Aside from the stage productions, Vesturport has produced three feature films including the award-winning Children and Parents and Brim, which will be released in 2009. The team is currently working on a new Vesturport production: Faust.

Hanna Björk Valsdóttir is a writer and producer, with a MA in Media, Culture and Communications from New York University. In recent past she has worked as a journalist, editor, film festival coordinator, production manager and producer at home and abroad.