Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis

Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis

The play metamorphosis was written by Franz Kafka but Steven Berkoff

produced a theatre adaptation of Metamorphosis in the late 1960’s.

Kafka was born 1883, his childhood was most troubling and life hard,

as he was a Jew growing up in German culture, also being ignored and

alienated is why Kafka could relate to the character Gregor. Kafka had

a hard relationship with his Father who would mistreat him and often

tell Kafka he was a failure and a disappointment, which came through

on to the character of Gregor’s Father, another reason for Kafka to

relate to Gregor. Both the way Kafka relates to the alienation of

Gregor’s character and the way the characters Father mistreats him, is

seen to be based on Kafka’s family experiences.

Metamorphosis was first performed in London July 1969 at the round

house as Berkoff’s theatre production. Growing up Berkoff studied

drama in London and Paris and his plays and adaptations have been

performed in many countries and languages, whether people wanted to

listen (like Kafka’s family) or they couldn’t understand the play,

Berkoff was trying to put across a message just like the character

Gregor to his family but the family just couldn’t understand. Berkoff

has acted in commercial films known as ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ and ‘A

Clock Work Orange’. This was in order to pay the bills and provide

funding for his independent theatre company, showing us just how as

the character Gregor, work and money are still very important. Berkoff

writing the character Gregor as a tired, overworked and stressed young

business man bringing money home for the family showed the hardworking

time of males in the 1960’s.

Berkoff tried to symbolise and highlight the fea...

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... the ache’s and pains of a

beetle, his soul is set free.

The play shows cultural differences of the 1950’s and the 1960’s, the

metamorphosis of Gregor’s character’s from working man to beetle and

his sister Greta, emphasise the change of era. Just as the character

Gregor’s emotions, way of living and movements go from those of an

everyday over worked business man to those of an insect or beetle, we

see the family move from terror and sympathy to the ultimate betrayal

whether it’s by violence such as his Father throwing the apple which

gets lodged in Gregor’s hard backed shell or to more emotionally

hurtful betrayal of Greta his loving sister, who at first was the only

one prepared to help, clean and feed him. The play ends as Greta

Metamorphosis into a woman while Gregor die’s as the beetle but being

set free. As you can see many Metamorphosis happened.