Edinburgh Fringe 2024
Kafka’s Metamorphosis: The Musical! With Puppets!
Throughline Projects LLC
Genre: American Theater, Musical Theatre, Puppetry, Theatre
Venue: Pleasance
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Matt Chiorini and Travis Newton commemorate the 100th anniversary of Franz Kafka’s death with a sweet musical that needs to be sassier and more surreal to meet the promise of its poster. And that begs the question: Should a musical about Kafka be sweet?
Review
In Kafka’s Metamorphosis: The Musical! With Puppets!, Gregor Samsa wakes up one day to discover that he has turned into the lead of an American musical. In the form of a singing insect. Hilarity ensues.
Such is the premise of this new musical by Matt Chiorini and Travis Newton, with its exclamation points and ecstatic promise of puppets. The title, poster and advertising copy of this show create an expectation that the audience is about to throw Franz Kafka into a blender with Avenue Q and hit the puree button. Those expectations are not met, however, by the actual show, which is less pure camp and more… earnest.
Sigh.
Earnestness certainly has its rightful place in the musical theatre canon. Without it, Jean Valjean would still be stealing bread and Maria von Trapp would be slapping her misbehaving stepchildren instead of singing to them. With Gregor Samsa, it’s an uneasy mix, largely because the audience is not given the surreal (it is Kafka, after all) and outrageous show they were led to expect.
That said, the actual musical that has arrived in Edinburgh has delights aplenty. Chiorini and Newton have crafted a structurally strong show with terrific music and a satisfying structure that goes back and forth between Kafka the suffering writer and Gregor Samsa as his literary stand-in, one who transforms into a giant bug incapable of communicating with his loved ones. Once the show gets rolling it’s clear that Chiorini and Newton are more interested in examining Kafka’s discomfort with the family patriarch and the effects of toxic masculinity on him, his mother and his sister Grete, and how his suffering led to his distinct literary output that became celebrated only after his death one hundred years ago.
And roll the show does. Director Alan Muraoka has done a masterful job intermingling the puppets (designed with fine wit by Spencer Lott) and his talented cast of four. Despite their youth, Kaia Fitzgerald (charming) and Luis Rivera (suitably stern) make for fully believable parents. Morgan Smith is a standout as Grete; she’s the belter of the group and ensures that though Grete is the little sister, she is given proper agency. Last but certainly not least is leading man Blake Du Bois, who is required to sing and contort well in equal measure as Gregor makes his transformation.
