There are only two more performances of Art Factory’s splendidly theatrical production of Mary Zimmerman’s 1998 adaptation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and you had better get thee hence before it disappears. It is beautiful and heart-grabbing, tremendously funny, and full of emotions bubbling beneath the surface.
The surface is a pool of water – the star of the show – a double pool to be correct; a shallow one surrounding the stage, which itself is a large swimming pool with bordered walkway. Water is the transforming element. It portrays the shores of islands, the river Styx, a place for washing laundry, the site where miracles occur. Everyone ends up in the water sooner or later. It is the home where the gods have their way with the paltry humans who are just like them. The water is balm, benediction, or punishment. The gods are awfully fickle.
In ten vignettes, Ovid’s immortal stories of the gods’ interaction with humans are re-imagined with a contemporary gloss that speaks to us through the sheer magic of theater. There is forbidden lust, hubris, kindness, first love, undying love. Love in all its forms, good and bad, sacred and profane. Zimmerman supplies the poetry, Art Factory supplies the magic.
Although the lighting could be crisper and the evocative musical score a bit softer so as not to drown out the dialogue, the show is a stunner, a retake of Bayou City Theatrics’ 2015 production, a former incarnation of Art Factory. Director and actor Colton Berry, who also serves as costume and set designer, knows his way around the stage, and keeps the production flowing freely like a invigorating Aegean breeze. It is utterly refreshing.
Who do we meet on this journey into the heart? There’s the comic tale of minor godlet Phaeton (Colton Berry), who scorched Ethiopia and almost destroyed the world by recklessly driving Apollo’s (Allan McFarland) sun chariot. He’s a spoiled Hollywood brat with daddy issues, lounging in the pool and being over-analyzed by an annoyingly intellectual therapist (Shonee Singer).
We also learn about familial forbidden sexual urgings from the tale of Myrrha (Julia Noble) and her goading by jealous goddess Aphrodite (Christine Mompoint) to commit the most unnatural of sins; and then the undying love of Alcyone and Ceyx (Nonie Hilliard and Ian Lewis), metamorphosed after their aching grief and longing into shore birds, who now sail together forever on the wind.
And there’s King Midas (Berry), a boasting titan of industry who is given the gift he most desires – a touch of gold – that turns into a curse which leaves him walking to the ends of the earth to expiate his guilt and reconnect with his once-golden daughter. There’s a simple and quick interlude of Narcissus (Lewis), lured off stage by the Deck Moppers when they show his face in a hand mirror; and the sweet bucolic tale of Pomona and Vertumnus (Hilliard and Luke Hamilton), a nerdy flower girl and the god of spring who loves her, interspersed with Myrrha’s tawdry story. And Hamilton creates a surprisingly Renaissance image of Eros with his sculptured buttocks and winged shoulders as Psyche (Hilliard) woos him, accompanied by the Valley Girl musings of Sam Lank and Mompoint.
Compact and illustrative, the stories blaze with mesmerizing insights that make the old, familiar tales surprisingly new and relevant. The splendid young cast, under director Berry’s agile eye, turns these lustful, vengeful, pitiable creatures into flesh and blood. No wonder these stories about love and betrayal fascinated the ancients — they still fascinate us with their abiding mystery and awe.
Everyone, into the pool.
Metamorphoses continues at 8 p.m. Saturday, April 1; 5 p.m. Sunday, April at Art Factory at The Docks, 1125 Providence. For more information, call 832-210-5200 or visit [email protected] $30.
