‘Metamorphoses’ – A potent, playful reminder of the enduring wisdom of ancient myths

Tamzin Williams and Lyle October in 'Metamorphoses' (Photo Fiona MacPherson)

By Keith Bain

6 Sep 2024

In Metamorphoses, eight talented actors grapple with the gods that live within.

Early on during the opening-night performance of Metamorphoses, the shock of those in the audience at the Baxter Studio was audible. You could hear the gasps, then sense a collective holding of breath. King Midas, standing in a swimming pool, had caught his daughter, who had leapt without warning into his arms.

In that instant, the innocent girl was unwittingly transformed into solid gold.

We all saw it coming and understood what the foregrounding events had been building up to. Many already knew the myth of the Phyrigian king’s golden touch. But when it happened, right there in front of us, the shock was somehow exquisitely real, even if actress Cassiel Eatock-Winnik had not truly metamorphosed into a lump of precious metal.

Despite the familiarity of the Midas myth, seeing its most devastating moment rendered as a kind of freeze-frame with real-life actors was both breathtaking and exhilarating. Even though Brent Palmer had played Midas as hugely unlikeable, it ripped your heart out to see him realising, just a fraction too late, that his greed had gotten the better of him. And that his overwhelming desire for wealth had caused him to destroy his daughter inadvertently.

In that frozen moment, with not a word spoken, this clever piece of theatre simply and eloquently disclosed the emotional essence of the myth’s eternal wisdom.

Brent Palmer and Cassiel Cassiel Eatock-Winnick in 'Metamorphoses'. (Photo: Fiona MacPherson)

Metamorphoses is a contemporary play by Mary Zimmerman that owes its inspiration principally to a 2,000-year-old Latin poem. In it, the Roman author Ovid managed to combine over 250 different myths into a single epic piece of writing of nearly 12,000 lines.

Zimmerman is comparatively economical with her dialogue, though the tales she’s refashioned and rendered in a modern idiom have lost nothing of their epic, expansive quality.

In her writing, she captures the spirit of the ancients, with their crazy gods and their hopelessly human mortals, and she breathes energy and life into a vast cast of characters who invite the audience to escape with them into a kind of dream. In this place, anything can happen and often does.

While there is romantic love and a good dose of eroticism, there is plenty of tragedy, too. And lots of death and the occasional pitch-black atrocity.

On the night this writer watched, there was nothing demure or restrained about the audience's reaction to some of the darkest subject matter.

Nolufefe Ntshuntshe, Lyle October, Mathew Vey and Brent Palmer in 'Metamorphoses'. (Photo: Fiona MacPherson)

Mathew Vey, Lyle October, Brent Palmer and Cassiel Eatock-Winnick in 'Metamorphoses'. (Photo: Fiona MacPherson)

Carlo Daniels and Brent Palmer in 'Metamorphoses'. (Photo: Fiona MacPherson)

As something heinous and almost unmentionable was happening in that swimming pool, I was reminded just how powerful the theatre can be as a tool for confronting the unsayable: incest remains just as horrifying and triggering today as it must have been when Ovid penned his poem in 8AD.

Over and above the heart-stopping grief of a greedy king and the unsettling confrontation with an ancient taboo, there’s plenty more in director Steven Stead’s production that feels almost operatic.

Sumptuous, full of atmosphere, by turns dreamy and nightmarish, it shifts gears often. One moment it low-key satirises itself, the next instant it takes you on an epic voyage across the sea (yes, that swimming pool, again) only to end up in a lo-fi, low-budget scene from a Marvel movie, except with Jason Momoa’s Aquaman being gloriously (and unintentionally) parodied by the wonderful actor Carlo Daniels, who, as Poseidon in a foul and murderous rage, uses his trident to churn up the water, making the ocean bubble and boil and froth.

And, yes, splashing even those of the audience in the fourth row, making them feel as though they are in on the action.

Carlo Daniels as Poseidon and Brent Palmer as a seafarer in 'Metamorphoses' (Photo Fiona MacPherson)

Carlo Daniels in 'Metamorphoses'. (Photo: Fiona MacPherson)

Again and again, the play takes creative turns as its various myths are reimagined, retold in a colloquial voice, given a comedic treatment, or condensed into exquisite images – or wonderfully irreverent ones.

In one scene, you witness Lyle October doing a whimsical turn as a mischievous Bacchus, only to see him return in a later vignette doffed out in a loincloth and white feathered wings as Eros, an embodiment of some mystical notion of love who is also just plain beautiful to look at.

Everyone in the cast of eight is allowed to shine. It’s a finely tuned ensemble, with each of the actors bringing special magic to the assortment of characters they play.

Tamzin Williams and Lyle October in 'Metamorphoses'. (Photo: Fiona MacPherson)

It looks and sounds extraordinary, too.

The aforementioned pool covers most of the stage and is used throughout as an integral part of the performance; a watery space in which the characters play, cavort, engage in intercourse, swim, float, die and experience all manner of metaphoric and literal metamorphosis.

Franky Steyn’s mood-making lighting in turn transforms Patrick Curtis’ striking set into something otherworldly and dreamlike. And Wolf Britz’s costumes similarly conjure characters who traverse realms real and imagined.

And then there is the music.

Composed by Jannous Nkululeko Aukema, it gorgeously complements the play’s tone, not merely underscoring but elevating its ethereal quality.

That feeling of transcendence, of finding oneself accompanying the characters into another dimension, is perhaps this play’s biggest reward.

In its finest moments, it is not merely an enactment of a script that retells ancient myths but becomes a conduit between our mortal selves and those gods that dwell so deep within us that we presume to call them the soul. DM

Metamorphoses, directed by Steven Stead, is playing at the Baxter Studio until 14 September. Tickets are available from WebTickets.

Categories:

Tags:

DM is much better if you are signed in...

South Africa