Metamorphoses: Bakersfield College Performing Arts 2024

Savanna Lux as Iris and Gary Enns as Sleep

I’ve been reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses off and on for years, dipping haphazardly into its stories of mutability—of ordinary people changed into gods, lovers changed into trees, demi-gods transformed into snakes, greedy kings into werewolves–when the whim strikes. It’s a good book to keep accessible on the end table for a random read on a whim. The only constant in Ovid’s world is, of course, change. No one escapes it, not even the gods who, despite their divinity, arose from somewhere, who fight, and who are all subject, it seems, to fate.

Mary Zimmerman's play, Metamorphoses, is based on David R. Slavitt's free-verse translation of Ovid’s work and features both greater and lesser-known tales, including Midas and his daughter, Alcyone and Ceyx; Erysichthon and Ceres; Orpheus and Eurydice, Narcissus, Pomona and Vertumnus, the incestuous Myrrha and her father, Phaeton, and finally Baucis and Philemon.

The cast is an ensemble, with most of us taking on many roles. For instance, I may at any given time be portraying Midas’ servant, Somnus (the god of sleep), the narrator of greedy Erysichthon’s unabated hunger, or Philemon, the gentle Tyanian villager who, along with his wife Baucis, is transformed into a pair of intertwined trees—an oak and a linden—at the time of death.

The most striking aspect of the production is the central set feature—a rectangular pool around and in which all action takes place. Both gods and sailors come and go from the mist-laden water as if by magic, sailors row across the water, dinner is served on the water, candles in bowls float across the surface.

Performances are April 24-28, 8 pm in the Edward Simonsen Outdoor Theatre. Tickets are avaialbe on Eventbrite.