Mary Zimmerman, an auteur-director with a career as epic as the myths she adapts, remounts her Tony Award-winning “Metamorphoses” as part of Lookingglass Theatre’s 25th season. Six Greek myths are performed by an ensemble of ten, wading through timeless themes of sex, love, and death. The stories - featuring famous mortals and gods like Midas, Eurydice, and Aphrodite - are staged in an iconic pool whose water adds weight to each step and gesture. Over the watery course of 90 minutes, the modernized myths effortlessly ebb and flow between tragedy (a deceased husband appears to his wife in a dream) and comedy (Sleep is rotund yawner with Zs floating around his head). While a few referential transitions will fly over the heads of those who didn’t study the Greeks, the bulk of Metamorphoses requires only an understanding of two great subjects of Western storytelling: sex and death. Water becomes the bed for both in “Metamorphoses.”
So why remount it? King Midas would touch on the financial gain (the production is already set to transfer to the Arena Stage in D.C.), while Narcissus would stare at the piece’s technical beauty. This critic is simply fortunate to experience a play originall conceived eight years after he was conceived; older now, he can take in the beauty, cleverness, and majesty of these staged dreams that soak you in their truth.
“Metamorphoses” is making a splash at Lookingglass through November 18. Tickets at http://lookingglasstheatre.org