Friday, Dec. 21, 2001
Metamorphoses
A wading pool takes up nearly the entire stage. Ten actors — some dressed in togas, others in modern-day suits — jump in and out of it to re-enact the myths of Ovid. There's Phaeton and his chariot; Midas (in the chair) and his daughter; Orpheus and his underworld voyage. Writer-director Mary Zimmerman's lovely, deeply affecting work (an off-Broadway hit moving to Broadway in March) recaptures the primal allure of the theater — it's fake; isn't it wonderful? Using stage devices that delight with their low-tech ingenuity and a text that modernizes without patronizing, it shows that theater can provide not just escape but sometimes a glimpse of the divine.