Scena Theatre’s Kafka runs 90 minutes without intermission

By Tom Whitfield

Scena Theatre’s “Metamorphosis” runs through November 22, 2026, with an approximately 90-minute performance and no intermission at The DC Arts Center, 2438 18th St. NW, Washington, DC 20009.

Robert McNamara directed Scena Theatre’s staging of Steven Berkoff’s adaptation of Franz Kafka’s 1915 novella. The review says the brisk 90-minute production examines alienation and family dysfunction. It calls Berkoff’s adaptation “a thrilling piece of visceral theatre” and dates its first staging to London in 1969.

Berkoff’s play starts with words spoken by Gregor’s father, the review notes, and recalls Kafka’s famous first line: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant insect.”

The review compares the premise with The Fly, then rejects the surface reading. It says Kafka’s 1915 tale is “no mere horror story” but a deeper exploration of the human predicament.

What should audiences notice in Scena Theatre’s staging?

The production makes human behavior, rather than Gregor’s insect body, the center of attention. Biographer Reiner Stach identifies “Metamorphosis” as Kafka’s first use of a metaphor that would become central to many of his works. Animals serve as silent witnesses to human behavior, while Gregor’s transformation allows Kafka to observe people from outside their accepted norms.

McNamara deploys exaggerated expression and movement, physicality, mime, dissonant sounds and stark lighting. At times, actors address the audience directly, which the review says heightens their estrangement. These choices support the production’s “visceral” claim, though the review offers no comparison with other Berkoff stagings and does not assess changes to the text.

Lee Ordeman supplies that physical argument as Gregor. Without an insect costume or props, he contorts his body as a human trapped inside an insect form. He screeches, howls and climbs across scaffolding that represents the bedroom prison. Until he breaks out, his family largely ignores him.

The review says Ordeman’s performance evokes revulsion and sympathy. It does not separate the effects of his movement from the script’s language, leaving the physical performance as the clearest basis for its praise.

Joe Palka plays Gregor’s father, initially presenting a genial family patriarch whose selfishness and ruthlessness emerge as he torments his son. The review connects that pattern to Kafka’s troubles with his own father. Biography supplies context, not proof that the role has only one meaning.

Nancy Flores, making her Scena debut, plays Gregor’s mother. The review credits her facial and physical expression with showing a mother whose love appears absolute and then fades when Gregor changes. Because the review offers no comparison with Flores’s earlier work, it identifies the debut but does not assess it against a baseline.

Katherine DuBois gives the production its coldest turn as Greta, Gregor’s sister. She moves from adoring child to the family member who intensifies pressure on him, removes the furniture that makes his room feel safe and reaches the story’s turning point: “We must get rid of it.”

The review calls DuBois’s role chilling. Its description shows family cruelty accumulating through practical acts rather than a single outburst, although the review does not document any exact alteration of Kafka’s dialogue.

The review links that behavior to Kafka’s life with his parents and sisters in Prague and a long-distance relationship with a woman in Berlin. It says he felt increasingly alone and feared greater estrangement as he pursued literary ambitions. It also identifies him as a minority within a minority: a Jewish member of Prague’s German community in the Czech part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

That context supports an alienation reading, but the review does not test whether the staging conveys Kafka’s historical specificity.

Kim Curtis adds a sharp tonal change as the chief clerk who visits the Samsa family to learn what happened to his employee, then reappears as a lodger. He perches on fellow lodger David Johnson’s knee like a ventriloquist’s puppet.

The review presents this as comic relief within the harrowing story, without measuring how far the episode loosens the play’s pressure.

• John Traub’s scenic design follows Berkoff’s minimalist vision: a bare platform surrounded by a scaffold cage.
• Marianne Meadows’s lighting spotlights the actors’ expressions, while shifting colors set the mood.
• Brandon Cook’s sound design creates an unsettled atmosphere from the play’s start.
• Alisa Mandel’s costumes give the play turn-of-the-century authenticity. The review does not identify a precise year or compare the clothing with another staging, so that period claim remains broad.

The review’s final judgment is favorable: “The acting and production do justice to the ambition of Berkoff’s vision and Kafka’s extraordinary imagination.” It also calls the play “well worth seeing” locally. That is an emphatic recommendation, but the evidence offered comes from one production’s cast and design rather than a comparative argument about Berkoff’s adaptation.

Through November 22, 2026, audiences can test whether mime, stark light and the absence of insect props make family estrangement more legible. On the review’s evidence, Ordeman’s body, DuBois’s performance and Palka’s concealed cruelty carry the argument, while Traub, Meadows, Cook and Mandel supply its austere frame.

The review gives no ticket price, seating or accessibility details, so those must be checked through online listings before the run ends.