Metamorphoses (play)

Play by Mary Zimmerman

Metamorphoses is a play by the American playwright and director Mary Zimmerman, adapted from the classic Ovid poem Metamorphoses. The play premiered in 1996 as Six Myths at Northwestern University and later the Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago. The play opened off Broadway in October 2001 at the Second Stage Theatre. It transferred to Broadway on 21 February 2002 at the Circle in the Square Theatre produced by Roy Gabay and Robyn Goodman. That year it won several Tony Awards. It was revived at the Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago on 19 September 2012 and was produced in Washington, DC at the Arena Stage in 2013.

Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphoses is based on David R. Slavitt's free verse translation of The Metamorphoses of Ovid. She directed an early version of the play, Six Myths, in 1996 at the Northwestern University Theater and Interpretation Center. Zimmerman's finished work, Metamorphoses, was produced in 1998. Of the many stories told in Zimmerman's Metamorphoses, only the introductory "Cosmogony" and the tale of Phaeton are from the first half of Ovid's Metamorphoses. The story of Eros and Psyche is not a part of Ovid's Metamorphoses; it is from Lucius Apuleius' novel Metamorphoses —also called The Golden Ass—and was included in Zimmerman's Metamorphoses because, as Zimmerman said in an interview with Bill Moyers of Now on PBS, "I love it so much I just had to put it in." She wrote and directed Metamorphoses during a period of renewed interest in the life and writings of Ovid. Other Ovid related works published in the same decades include David Malouf's 1978 novel, An Imaginary Life; Christoph Ransmayr's Die letzte Welt (1988) (The Last World, translated into English by John E. Woods in 1990); and Jane Alison's The Love Artist (2001). Additionally, Ovid's Metamorphoses were translated by A. D. Melville, Allen Mandelbaum, David R. Slavitt, David Michael Hoffman and James Lasdun, and Ted Hughes—in 1986, 1993, 1994, 1994, and 1997, respectively. When Metamorphoses is not a conventional arrangement and has a non linear point of view. Miriam Chirico describes the work as "enacting myth does not require creating a plausible character, but rather an emblematic figure who demonstrates a particular, identifiable human trait." The story of Orpheus and Eurydice is told twice, each to emphasize their individual stories and act like mirrors with reflecting stories of love and loss; the first being from Orpheus' point of view from Ovid's tale from 8 A. D., then Eurydice's tale in 1908 inspired by German poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Orpheus is an archetype for strong human emotion and expressing it through poetry and music. Music is related to Orpheus' ability to move only forward in time, along with his feelings and mortal love. Although they can repeat, as they do in the scene several times, they cannot turn back completely and be the same. Zimmerman includes with the line, "Is this a story about how time can only move in one direction?" to bring light to Orpheus' struggle. Phaeton narrates his own story (not the case with most of the other stories). With the Therapist bringing a glimpse of Freudian psychoanalysis, Phaeton's relationship with his father can be seen in new ways: "the father is being asked to perform an initiation rite, to introduce his son to society, [and] to inscribe him in a symbolic order." The plot is constructed as a series of vignettes, framed overall by a few narrative devices. The opening scene essentially shows the creation of the world, or Cosmogony, not only sets up the world that the following characters will live in, but the world itself. In terms of a beginning and end within the stories themselves, King Midas frames them with his story of greed at the beginning and his redemption at the last moments of the play. After being introduced as a horribly selfish man, the other stories of the play get told and mask the lack of resolution within the Midas story. Finally at the end, Midas who is "by this time long forgotten and in any case unexpected reappears, newly from his quest" with his restored daughter, and "on this note of love rewarded and love redeemed, the play comes to an end.". Miriam Chirico has described Zimmerman's plays as "theater of images" and compared to the style of the director Robert Wilson, Pina Bausch, and Julie Taymor. Each story contains at least one example. The theme of change is expressed by the play's use of water. The set includes centrally placed pool, into which characters move and leave as they are transformed. The water is used for different functions throughout Metamorphoses, and it is described as "the most protean (lit: diverse or varied) of elements"

Zimmerman's play also examines the causes of change in persons. What can make a person become something completely different? The most frequent cause throughout Metamorphoses is love. At the same time, Metamorphoses warns of what happens when love is ignored. When Erysichthon cuts down a sacred tree, showing that he loves only himself, he is transformed into a man consumed by hunger, eventually eating himself. When the beautiful Myrrha scorns the love of her suitors, the goddess Aphrodite curses her to love her father. Discovered, she flees to the wilderness, where the gods transform her into tears. Zimmerman has said that "[Metamorphoses] makes it easy to enter the heart and to believe in greater change as well that we all can transform." The comedy elements present contemporary connections for the audience to the mythic stories. When an audience hears a clever interjection by Zimmerman, they can easily take in the experience of a well written play. His music often signifies a change in scene or accompanies specific moments, often one or more of poetic speech. Finger cymbals are used in the story of Midas, to indicate his footsteps after he has the power of transforming all he touches to gold. Although the play kept many of the Off Broadway aspects of the show, it subdued the incest scene between Myrrha and King Cinyras for the Broadway production. The Off Broadway scene had the pair "writhing and splashing" enthusiastically in a much more intense and disturbing fashion; on Broadway they gently rolled in the water. It closed on February 16, 2003, after a total of 400 performances. This production was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play in 2002, competing against Suzan Lori Parks' Topdog/Underdog and Edward Albee's The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, which took the award. Despite the staging challenges, with a pool of water for actors to swim and frolic in required to successfully produce the show, the play has been popular on stages throughout the United States. Constellation Theatre Company in Washington, D. C. produced the show in 2012, directed by Allison Arkell Stockman and featuring live music by Tom Teasley. Arena Stage in Washington, D. C. brought the Lookingglass Theatre Company's production, directed by Mary Zimmerman, to its Fichandler Stage in 2013.

Mary Zimmerman was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1960. As a child she was introduced to the stories of the ancient Mediterranean world by Edith Hamilton's Mythology. While studying in England, a teacher read her The Odyssey. Beyond her childhood fascination with Greek myths, Zimmerman credits the Jungian scholar James Hillman as the source of many of her ideas involving love, such as that in the story of Eros and Psyche. She also acknowledges the influence of Joseph Campbell, a scholar of mythology, in her work. Metamorphoses was Zimmerman's first Broadway production.