Senior theatre major Nakoa Zurlo as Hades
The University of South Carolina theatre program will present Scenes from Metamorphoses, Mary Zimmerman’s profoundly moving adaptations of classic Greek myths, October 28-31 at the Lab Theatre.
Showtime is 8pm nightly. Tickets are $10 and available online at sc.universitytickets.com.
In keeping with university safety protocols, masks will be required of all audience members, actors and crew, and seating will be limited to allow for appropriate social distancing between all patrons. The Lab Theatre is located at 1400 Wheat St. on the first floor of the Booker T. Washington building.
While the show’s title might indicate an abridged version of Zimmerman’s popular play, the production will indeed contain all the original’s text but with a smaller-than-usual cast of seven. Hailed in 2002 as “the theatre event of the year” (Time), the award-winning Metamorphoses is a breathtaking fusion of classic and contemporary storytelling, bringing Roman poet Ovid’s timeless myths to dazzlingly theatrical life. Mary Zimmerman’s daring adaptations explore the wide gamut of our universal experience, from love to loss, from joy to despair, connecting it all with the idea that nothing in life comes without transformation.
"Mary Zimmerman's lovely, deeply affecting work...shows that theater can provide not just escape but sometimes a glimpse of the divine." — Time
“It’s a really unique combination of adaptations of Ovid’s stories mixed mixed with other iterations of the myths and Zimmerman's own interpretations of who the characters are and what they could be,” says director Tiffani Hagan, a second-year graduate theatre student. “Each story touches on universal themes like love or loss or fear of the unknown, making them stories that everyone can relate to.”
The play juxtaposes the mythic stories of well-known characters such as Midas, the greedy king who receives the power to turn everything he touches to gold, with lesser-known figures like Erysichthon, cursed by the goddess Ceres to endure an insatiable hunger. Hagan says this production emphasizes the anachronistic style of the myths as they are presented in the play, placing many of the ancient tales in modern, often humorous settings. Think Midas as a Steve Jobs-esque business mogul or Apollo’s son Phaeton telling his story in a therapy session on a pool float.
“The myths can jump in and out of time because they really are timeless,” says Hagan.
Cast in the production are undergraduate students Asaru Buffalo, Ezri Fender, Cameron Giordano, Cady Gray, Brighton Grice, Carly Siegel, and Nakoa Zurlo. The production’s design team includes third-year graduate student Heather Gonzalez (costumes) and undergraduates Logan Brodfuehrer (scenic), Brooks Beaty (lighting), and Josiah Burton (sound).
“These are stories we’ve all heard at some point in our lives,” says Hagan. “The characters show up again and again in television shows or movies, whether we recognize them as being originally Greek myths or not. This play is a fun way to see them in another light and in a new way.”
For more information on Scenes from Metamorphoses or the theatre program at the University of South Carolina, contact Kevin Bush by phone at 803-777-9353 or via email at bushk@mailbox.sc.edu.
—Courtesy of USC Department of Theatre and Dance