Lemn Sissay OBE to collaborate with Frantic Assembly on bold new production of Kafka’s METAMORPHOSIS

Photo credit: @MrPerou and Paul Reardon at Peter and Paul

Frantic Assembly will collaborate with internationally celebrated poet, playwright and broadcaster Lemn Sissay OBE on a new adaptation of Franz Kafka’s shocking tale of cruelty and kindness, Metamorphosis.

Directed by Frantic’s Artistic Director Scott Graham, the new production will premiere at Theatre Royal Plymouth from 12–16 September 2023, followed by a tour to Leicester and Southampton, and a four week run in Hammersmith. Further tour venues will be announced soon. 

Kafka’s Metamorphosis has burnt itself deep into our psyche. It is absurd and horrific. It  is tragic and heart breaking. Gregor Samsa finds himself transformed from bread winner into burden. It is a devastating portrayal of a man trapped and crushed under the heel of a system that no longer finds him useful. 

Metamorphosis is an inherently visceral production. It is about the limitations of the body  and the mind, of our imagination and aspiration. It has such a rich and intense physicality that extends far beyond one character’s sudden transformation. It aches with the desire to break free and the violence of its suppression. All of this, coupled with the fluidity and  lyricism of Lemn Sissay’s adaptation and the uncompromising physicality of Frantic Assembly, promises an exciting and dynamic show. 

Frantic Assembly are thrilled to be working with Lemn Sissay on the adaptation of the Kafka novella. Talking about the collaboration Lemn Sissay said: “This will be my second adaptation after Benjamin Zephaniah's Refugee Boy in 2013. Words make movement, words precede movement and words (spoken or written) are movement. Frantic Assembly is the theatre of movement. My aim is to move the audience and to be moved. Metamorphosis is iconic. I am nervous, like an olympian, a long distance runner, the starting gun has fired, dust plumes beneath my feet, the end is a long way away. I pace myself, I focus and I concentrate...” 

The full creative team will be announced in the new year. 

For more information, please click here.