Metamorphoses?

[B-Way4Life]

Posted: 7/14/06 at 12:28pm

Anybody have info. on this play?

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 7/14/06 at 12:29pm

What info do you want?

[Bigfatactor01]

Posted: 7/14/06 at 12:34pm

Yah I just did it last year....

A great show by Mary Zimmerman- who tottaly owned the peice...

Its bassically a take on a few great Greek (I guess you could cal lthem Fables) I prefer to say stories...It all revolves around water, the language is easy to understand (Based on Ovid's Metamorphases)

The stories range from a husband whose tries to retreave his wife from the underworld to a king dealing with hunger (represented by a person)...It's really great. I highly reccomend you buy the script.

Posted: 7/14/06 at 1:13pm

When people do Metamorphoses, how often do they use the Zimmerman staging? Zimmerman's work (I'm a big fan, having scene Notebooks of DaVinci and Secret In The Wings) is so physically-oriented, that I don't see how you can divorice the two.. but then, not everyone has a pool at their disposal.

[B-Way4Life]

Posted: 7/14/06 at 1:30pm

My school is doing this in the fall and I am not too sure how to prepare for the auditions. Nothing has been specified. Any ideas?

[bjivie2]

Posted: 7/14/06 at 2:36pm

I actually don't believe that it is available for production. (Pegasus, I think it's because of your reasoning - it's so based on Zimmerman's physicality as a director it won't work if anyone else does it) If your high school is doing it, it's doing it illegally. Don't quote me on it, but the publisher doesn't list anyone holding the rights in the published script and I don't recall seeing it on any of the larger theatre royalty companies.

As people have said Metamorphoses is a collection of Greek myths/stories all performed in and around a pool. It's about the uplifting and powerful nature of story in the face of inevitable change. Absolutely beautiful imagery.

Updated On: 7/14/06 at 02:36 PM

[MrSweetNAwful]

Posted: 7/14/06 at 2:48pm

B-Way4Life...you don't go to PCCA do you?

[B-Way4Life]

Posted: 7/14/06 at 3:26pm

No.

[MrSweetNAwful]

Posted: 7/14/06 at 4:34pm

Okay, were doing it in the fall too so I had a strange feeling I might know you

[ashley0139]

Posted: 7/15/06 at 2:54pm

I saw it last year at a high school (and I know for a fact they don't do shows illegally). It was really brilliant. They had a big pool of water in the middle of the stage, and everything revolved around it. I loved it.

[ZONEACE]

Posted: 7/15/06 at 3:27pm

I saw it on broadway and it was amazing.

[ThankstoPhantom]

Posted: 7/15/06 at 3:51pm

I saw it at Albany's Capital repertory Theatre in April. It's such a brilliant and moving piece.

[Funny Face]

Posted: 7/15/06 at 3:55pm

I'm pretty sure it's legal to put on this show. I saw a high school do it recently at a theater festival, and it seems from this thread several other high schools have done it also, so it seems that the rights are available.

[jam_man]

Posted: 7/15/06 at 6:08pm

It is legal to do it (I did it a few years ago), but I think you need to get permission from Mary Zimmerman herself. At least we did.

It's a very good play do see, and the pool (assumming you have one) is a fun feature. HOWEVER, it can start your drama teacher on a slippery slope down the Zimmerman cannon. We did Metamorphoses my Soph. year, and then last year we did her version of The Arabian Nights. While it is good stuff, I've compared learner her stuff to learning an Italian aria - it can be very frustrating for a while, but when you really start to understand it, it can make for a great performance.

BTW, here's a word of wisdom, assumming you have an actual pool. DO NOT SHARE TOWELS!!! We did for a while, and a rash of some sort (I forgot what exactly) spred throught our cast. Though I never got it myself, I was in the minority. The same thing happened with (I believe) Illinois State when they did just before we did. You may think it's the water (which our TD drained and re-filled everyday to be sure), but it's the towel sharing.

[Hawker]

Posted: 7/15/06 at 6:41pm

It is breathtaking visually and the alternative version of Rainer Maria Rilke's "Oedipus and Euripedes" is in the top-five of the most enduring theatrical images I have ever witnessed.

The words are among the most evocative in western literature concerning the incomprehensible state of death:

“She was deep within herself, like a woman heavy with child, and did not see the man in front or the path ascending steeply into life. Deep within herself being dead filled her beyond fulfillment. Like a fruit suffused with its own mystery and sweetness, she was filled with her vast death, which was so new, she could not understand that it had happened.”

-Rainer Maria Rilke (Oedipus and Euripedes.)

I have already hopped a plane to see this play--and that was my third time.

It's gorgeous beyond words when the original sets are used and the incidental music is inspired. All in all, it is aesthetically sumptious and although Zimmerman has often been criticized for employing her own cadre of actors and actresses rather than more-seasoned professionals, to me the piece is an almost flawless mosaic of tragedy and comedy with moments that alternately elicit heartrending sorrow, aching beauty, belly laughs, and ultimatley awe.

A masterpiece by any standard.

Updated On: 7/15/06 at 06:41 PM

[CompletlyNakedStatue]

Posted: 7/15/06 at 9:45pm

I don't have much to add, other than I saw this during it's broadway running and it was stunning. Possibly the most beautiful thing I've seen on stage ever. It's brilliant.

[ThankstoPhantom]

Posted: 7/15/06 at 10:11pm

At the regional production i saw in Albany, the most moving sequence for me was ALcyone & Ceyx...in the procudtion I saw, the pool was round and the audience right in the actors' faces...when Alcyone used a lantern to call for her husband, running back and forth through the water...my heart was broken into so many pieces.

Zimmerman is an incredible writer.

[Hawker]

Posted: 7/16/06 at 12:28pm

Indeed. The pantomining as seabirds in flight was magnificent.

How about the very last moments with the cast in the pool and the floating candles as they extinguish them one by one, reciting the whispers of the trees, until only the water can be seen.

It almost broke my heart when that show closed. If I was Donald Trump I would personally back it as long as people wanted to see it and meet the theater owner's vig myself.

[LeadingMan051990]

Posted: 7/16/06 at 1:02pm

My high school did this show 2 years ago (completely legal), and everyone who saw it said it was the best straight play we've ever done. We actually did have a pool in ours and it worked perfectly. I don't think this play can be done effectively without the pool since water is such an important factor in some of the plotlines.

[B-Way4Life]

Posted: 8/14/06 at 1:39am

Leadingman, what did your director do for the auditions? I'm having trouble trying to prepare as nothing has been announced as to waht can be expected. Can you give me any idea what might be expected?

[BruceWayne5148]

Posted: 8/14/06 at 9:06am

if you live in atlanta make sure you check it out with georgia shakespeare. it's going on right now and it is amazing