A new production was staged at World Chess Club Berlin on 28 February 2025. The play is an immersive work based on Kafka’s “Verwandlung” that explores the nature of alienation, social and psychological isolation. The story of the protagonist becomes a reflection of the mechanism in which the individual is forced to abandon his or her own desires and aspirations in order to integrate into a society that ultimately rejects him or her. This process turns the individual into a faceless element of the system, where his existence loses value and his inner world is destroyed under the pressure of social norms and expectations. The protagonist’s gradual transformation is a metaphor for marginalisation, in which society, by defining the boundaries of the norm, excludes ‘outsiders’ and turns them into a threat, denying them the right to be part of the whole.
At the centre of the story is Gregor Samsa, a character who loses his humanity and becomes an ‘outsider’, making him the embodiment of people forced to exist on the margins of society. His transformation becomes a symbol of those who face alienation: immigrants, bearers of a different culture, people whose differences are perceived as deviations from the social norm. The play raises important questions: how does society shape the image of the ‘alien’? Why does otherness cause fear? And is it possible to preserve one’s identity if existence in the system requires its suppression? Emigration in this context is seen not only as a physical process, but also as a deeply psychological ordeal, when one becomes invisible and one’s voice loses significance.
The production combines dramatic and physical theatre, contemporary dance and cabaret to create a space filled with metaphors and emotional contrasts. The visual component is formed with the help of unique art objects by Venera Kazarova, and the music by Marina Sobyanina emphasises the boundary between reality and illusion, between the perception of the hero and the world around him. The space of the performance becomes a metaphor for a closed system in which the individual is trapped in social stigmatisation.