As the groundbreaking play “Metamorphosis” reaches the end of its run in Greece, its director reflects on its significance today
~ Tasos Sagris ~
I remember very clearly the moment I decided to direct this iconic literary work. I felt an intense need to offer the audience a chance and a way to share what remains hidden and unspoken behind the imposed norms of this world.
Metamorphosis tells the tragic story of a man who wakes up one morning and cannot go to work. This event turns him into a social parasite, a gigantic insect that those around him perceive with fear and horror for what he is and what he represents.
The initial dramaturgical idea was to highlight job insecurity and the constant anxiety of survival that overwhelms us all. With the outbreak of the pandemic, suddenly—without changing anything in the performance itself—the content took on new dimensions. People around us started being seen as parasites, it became easy to label someone as a harmful entity, and patients were isolated, dying alone and buried without their loved ones present. After the pandemic ended, the war in Ukraine broke out, followed by the genocide of the Palestinian people, the global rise of fascism, and skyrocketing prices of basic necessities like housing and energy. We live on a planet that is becoming more unlivable every day.
Gregor Samsa, imprisoned in the routine of his daily work life, represents each one of us, trapped in the gears of a production system that neither benefits nor includes us. Work is no longer a means of creative expression, but an anxious necessity and a condition for survival. In today’s era of job insecurity, fixed-term contracts, and the constant threat of unemployment, Gregor’s body transforms into a parasite—symbolising the crushing of the human spirit under the weight of the endless effort to remain productive and useful. The identification of “I am” with “I produce” creates a perpetual survival anxiety that permeates every aspect of our existence, making Kafka prophetic in his portrayal of the unacceptable labour conditions we face today.
The pandemic brought to the surface a radical shift in how we perceive the human body and physical contact. Fellow humans became potential sources of infection, potential threats. The social condition of the pandemic turned the afflicted into modern-day Gregor—beings whom their surroundings faced with fear and revulsion. Even after restrictions were lifted, this experience left an indelible mark on our collective psyche, exposing the fragile nature of social bonds and the thin line between acceptance and rejection.
War and violence erupted. Civilians crushed between the hellish volcanoes of geopolitics are today’s Gregors—waking up in a world where daily life has been replaced by terror, uncertainty, and displacement. Metamorphosis becomes a collective traumatic experience, with humanity watching in anguish as the spectre of war returns to the heart of Europe, showing just how thin the thread of peace and normalcy we took for granted really is. The cycle of violence is perpetuated by the capitalist arms industry, and the future appears increasingly terrifying and irrational.
Kafka’s narrative takes on a chilling relevance as we witness the global rise of fascist and authoritarian trends. The family in the play accepts, recognises, rejects, and ultimately wants to rid itself of the “foreigner,” the other—a microcosm of society’s slide toward fascism. The forgetting of our shared humanity, the division into “us” and “them,” and the normalisation of disdain for the different. Power, as always—regardless of its source—exploits fear and insecurity, curtails freedom as a concept, an act, a reality, and stigmatises minorities and all forms of otherness.
Gregor’s anguish mirrors the daily struggle of millions of people for basic necessities. Life becomes both a refuge and a prison. Millions of families experience unbelievable stress over economic survival, watching their income evaporate just to meet basic needs like shelter and heating. Home becomes a privilege, warmth a luxury, and daily survival a constant battle against the uncontrollable forces of the market. Kafka, living in a time of economic instability, foresaw humanity’s paradoxical condition—its inability to secure the essentials for all despite its technological advancement.
The world is becoming increasingly “Kafkaesque”. This adjective—Kafkaesque—has entered our vocabulary to describe a world that is irrational, incomprehensible, full of faceless bureaucratic labyrinths and invisible powers. A hundred years after the death of the Czech author, our lives are more Kafkaesque than ever: algorithms govern our lives without our understanding, bureaucratic systems leave us vulnerable to their decisions, and artificial intelligence reshapes social and labour relations. The modern individual experiences this sense of powerlessness and alienation, as decisions that deeply affect their life are made in inaccessible spheres of authority. We wake up one morning in a world where all the rules have suddenly changed—new crises, technological shifts, and socio-political upheavals constantly alter the landscape of our existence.
In Kafka’s world, domination is omnipresent—sometimes visible, sometimes invisible, suffocating, elusive—a condition that also characterises our current era. With digital surveillance and predictive algorithms, mechanisms of control have infiltrated every aspect of our daily lives, beyond the limits of our immediate perception, often without us even realising it. The modern person, like Gregor Samsa, desperately searches for cracks in the system, gaps and edges where they can exist on their own terms. The slits beneath the door, the dark corners of the room, the spaces beneath the furniture—these small zones of freedom sought by the transformed Gregor correspond to the small nuclei of resistance cultivated by today’s subjects: from encrypted communication to alternative communities and grassroots movements. Like frightened cockroaches in the twilight of a system programmed to destroy us, we seek places where we can preserve our humanity.
Despite its grim ending, Kafka’s Metamorphosis harbours a paradoxical optimism: the potential for radical change. This is the hopeful interpretation of the play. Gregor’s metamorphosis, though violent and unwanted, frees him from the chains of his social role, from family obligations, from the exhausting work routine. Likewise, every major crisis and disruption in our lives can become an opportunity for a deeper reevaluation of what we took for granted. The power of total liberation lies in the recognition that identities, relationships, and social structures are not natural givens but human constructs that can be reinvented. Kafka, denouncing an alienating world, reminds us of the innate human capacity to dream and create different worlds—a capacity that remains revolutionary even in the darkest of times.
The play Metamorphosis concludes this season, yet the work itself can continue to be performed for years, and its meaning for us may continue to evolve as events, history, and the fabric of our lives change. A hundred years after Kafka’s death, our performance has shown that the great Czech author remains more relevant than ever. As the world becomes increasingly Kafkaesque, as power structures grow stronger, individuals search for ways to escape through the cracks of the world like frightened cockroaches. And yet, at the same time, humanity continues to carry within it the possibility of radical transformation—the power of total liberation.
Translated from The Epoch
