The Department of Theater at Swarthmore College will present Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses in the Lang Performing Arts Center’s Frear Ensemble Theatre on Friday, December 3rd at 4:30pm and 9:00pm and Saturday, December 4th at 3:00pm and 8:00pm. The Senior Company includes Eva Amessé ‘11, Nell Bang-Jensen ‘11, Emily Letts ‘11, Joshua Lipman ‘11, Isa St. Clair ‘11, and Brian Willis ‘11, with guest performers Ben Hattem ‘12, Thomas Powers ‘13 and Brian Ratcliffe ’11. The production also includes set design by Professor Laila Swanson, lighting design by Jessie Bear ’09, sound design by Louis Jargow ’10, costume consultation by Tara Webb ’94 and props design by Vianca Masucci ’13 and Logan Tiberi-Warner ‘11. The event will be free and open to the public without reservations.
Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses is a non-naturalistic play that uses mythic elements to tell stories about human transformation. The play is based on the myths of Ovid as translated by David Slavitt, along with several other fables as interpreted by the playwright, and includes words from a poem by Rainer Marie Rilke. After initially premiering in 1996 at Northwestern University, it was picked up in 1998 by the Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago and then premiered off-Broadway in October 2001 at the Second Stage Theater in New York. Metamorphoses opened on Broadway at the Circle in the Square Theater in 2002, was nominated for Best Play and won a Tony Award for Best Direction.
The play builds a foundation of striking images that examines human behavior and emotions from different viewpoints. Senior Company has staged the production as a series of fantastical, Greek vignettes in an abstract and thought-provoking environment. Senior Company’s collective design and collaborative process focuses this production on the storytelling, explores the relationships of the multitude of characters present in its world, and showcases the central idea of the play. The characters are not the actors themselves, but various storytelling personas that the actors manifest using props, physicality, and costumes. The goal is to offer tales to ponder and wonder about, not to make the audience choose sides between story and storyteller. As Mary Zimmerman states, “the Greek gods, I believe, are twelve different names for feelings inside ourselves….”
For further information about these events, contact Tara Webb at 610-328-8260 or twebb1@swarthmore.edu