Dark, ceaselessly uncanny and traumatised by conflated, contorting limbs, this production of Metamorphosis unsettles from the outset. Walking into the dimly lit room, the throbbing, escalating audio of scuttling beetles reverberating through the speakers, the audience is immersed in what immediately feels like a pressurised antechamber. Bodies crookedly manoeuvred with stunning mechanical precision, the atmosphere was one of perpetual suspension, of invigoratingly intense ambiguity. The uncertainty upon arrival induced by the twitching, faceless characters gripped the audience immediately with its unnerving feelers. The gracefulness with which the production balanced its physical grotesqueness and the implicit metaphorical and psychological insinuations, manifest in the Shakespearean-witch like girls whose elegant puppetry induced shivers, cannot be commended highly enough.

The characters’ imprisonment within a capitalist system and their subsequent alienation is captured cleverly within the swelling ritualistic repetitions of speech. The scrutinising attention paid to the minute intricacies of movement, displayed, unparalleled, by Joe Jukes in a performance up there with the best I’ve ever seen in Cambridge, made for a spectacular (and uncomfortable) visual display. The fragility of the flickering hands and tenuously dangling photographs hardened in light of the revealed metal construction, on which Gregor was to conduct his eerie gymnastics. Equally, the filthy writhing of the latter coupled with the grace with which the scenes of what bordered on contemporary dance were executed shows the director’s ability to exhibit the beautiful and the disgusting in one breath.

Just as the panic and claustrophobia are not missed by this production, so too does it capture, albeit at brief intervals, the dark humour that ripples through Kafka’s story. The donning of a Sainsbury’s jacket by Matt Gurtler didn’t fail to produce some awkward titters from the audience, nor did his often brilliant caricature-esque depiction of the lazy father. It is unclear as to whether the often robotic acting during some of the laconic films was intended to burgeon this sense of discomfort, edited artfully, perhaps, to play on the latent ridiculousness of the concept and to expose its comic underbelly, or if they rather just briefly fell flat, but they nonetheless also produced a laugh from the audience.

The films themselves were a welcome splash of colour amidst the grey landscape of the set. Beautifully shot, they proved to be an elegant juxtaposition with the filth lining the stage floor, just as the milk Gregor drinks shockingly splashes blood red as he splays it everywhere. The films added dynamism to the play, fleshing it out and adding an excitement that might otherwise have been difficult to sustain in a story not renowned for its riveting narrative action and more for its ideological implications. These, paired with the excellent variations of dramatic lighting and crooked strains of violin and beetle sounds, demonstrates how awake this director clearly is to all the possibilities of theatre, and the theatrical space. The scene of transformation, the most important of the play, left nothing to be desired—the flashing lighting was intense, the music oppressively mounted and the audience seemed to be left astonished by the scene.

The performance of the mother, Elise Hagan, was also notable; convincing and compelling, her emotional range established a strong family narrative that perhaps would have been lacking, adding the ululating edge needed to push the genuinely heart-rending aspect of the play into melodrama in just the right way. Overall however, praise cannot be sung highly enough for the stellar performance given by Joe Jukes as Gregor.

Despite the peaks and troughs in acting and action at times, the production overall was one that the entire cast should be proud of. A glittering example of what the student-led theatre scene can achieve in Cambridge, this production of Metamorphosis was deeply, deliciously disturbing.