METAMORPHOSES


A Noise Within closes its 2021-2022 season with what may well be the classical theater company’s most breathtakingly gorgeous production ever, Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses.

Like her action-adventure swashbuckler Argonautika: The Voyage Of Jason And The Argonauts, which dazzled ANW audiences three years ago, Zimmerman’s 2002 Tony winner takes Greek and Roman mythology as its point of departure (in this case Ovid’s epic poem of the same name) and lets a playwright’s imagination soar.

Among its mythological dramatis personae are Midas, whose love for gold robs him of his most precious possession, his daughter; lovers Alcyone and Ceux, who perish in the ocean and are then transformed by the gods into birds; King Erysichthon, whose cutting down of a sacred tree causes him to be cursed with insatiable hunger; Orpheus, who travels to the underworld in hopes of being reunited with his deceased love Eurydice; and Pomona, who marries Vertumnus after tricking her into believing that he was an old woman.

What sets Metamorphoses apart from pretty much any other play you or I have ever seen is revealed by the playwright in the very first sentence of her “Note on Staging.”

“The stage is entirely occupied by a square or rectangular pool of water, of varying depth, bordered on all four sides by a wooden deck approximately three feet wide.”

No wonder few theater companies have had the ways, means, or chutzpah to stage Metamorphoses. No wonder it’s taken A Noise Within thirty seasons to dare to do Zimmerman’s play the justice it needs to be done.

But do it justice they have, and spectacularly so.

Following Zimmerman’s instructions to the letter, scenic designer François-Pierre Couture has converted virtually the entire A Noise Within thrust stage into a swimming pool so inviting, it looks as if it could grace the most elegant of Beverly Hills homes.

And it is within this pool that most of Metamorphoses takes place, as characters “swim, float, splash, thrash, drown, paddle, bathe, fight, make love, wash their clothes, study their reflections, and, in general, spend most of the evening sopping wet.” (That’s a quote from In Robert Cohen’s book Theatre, but since I couldn’t put it any better myself, I’m echoing what he wrote.)

Add to this Garry Lennon’s magical, mythical costumes, Ken Booth’s exquisite lighting shining both down on and out of the water, and sound designer Robert Oriol’s spellbinding original music, and you have a production so dazzlingly beautiful, take a gander at the production stills that accompany this review and you’ll see why mere words can’t do it justice.

Director Julia Rodriguez-Elliot once again outdoes herself in theatrical ingenuity and flair, and the performances she has elicited from her all-star cast overflow with with abundant athleticism and grace in addition to the acting chops A Noise Within regulars have come to expect.

Though the program attributes only one or two characters each to DeJuan Christopher (Ceyx), Geoff Elliott (Midas), Rafael Goldstein (Orpheus), Nicole Javier (Iris), Kasey Mahaffy (Phaeton, Silenus), Sydney A. Mason (Aphrodite), Trisha Miller (Alcyone), Cassandra Marie Murphy (Lucina), and Erika Soto (Eurydice), together they bring to life more than two dozen gods, goddesses, and mortals in all, eliciting laughter and tears and oohs and ahs as all nine of them get splashed on and/or soaking wet four or five times a week, twice on Saturdays.

Add to this the design contributions of Shen Heckel (properties) and Tony Valdés (wigs and makeup), and Kenneth R. Merckx, Jr.’s thrilling fight choreography and you have not just A Noise Within’s 2021-2022 season best, Metamorphoses deserves to make any critic’s Top Ten list.

Amy Rowell is stage manager and Mikayla Bettner is assistant stage manager. Miranda Johnson-Haddad is dramaturg. Lucy Pollak is publicist.

Will Block, Kodi Jackman, Philicia Saunders, Andrea Somera, Frederick Stuart, and Gioya Tuma-Waku are understudies.

If you love live theater as much as I do, and if you love it even more when it takes your breath away, you owe it to yourself not to miss Metamorphoses. Theatrical enchantment has rarely been as bewitching as this.

A Noise Within, 3352 East Foothill Blvd, Pasadena.
www.ANoiseWithin.org

–Steven Stanley
May 15, 2022
Photos: Craig Schwartz

 

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