How many people’s lives have been terribly impacted by the large and small disruptions caused by the global pandemic? Neil Redfield, the writer and star of Pim’s Metamorphoses, is one of them. He has returned to his childhood home. He is thinking. “Something about being in this room again.”
Originally written as a solo piece while attending Southern Methodist University in 2019, Mr. Redfield has adapted his work into a live digital performance. Similar to Ovid’s seminal Metamorphoses, this is a poem. It may not be an epic per se, but it is wildly ambitious in scope. The work is clearly personal. Setting the show in his actual childhood bedroom in the middle of a pandemic with the world closing in and abundant time to overthink anything and everything is truly inspired timing.
What was this young boy really afraid of as a child? Why did he fear the sun failing to rise each and every morning? Those are the questions posed at the beginning of this work. Was the sun breaking its promise? The viewer is soon to find out in a series of sections both fantastical and mundane. He begins his journey falling out of a window. The video angles were cleverly executed.
Mr. Redfield and his Director, Ann Noling, remotely conceived this production. This performance lasts approximately ninety minutes. One person and one long poem in a room. Along with Scenographer Matthew Deinhart, the creative team nicely developed movement and varied locations which were effective in setting mood and changing scenes. There’s even a little puppetry. While the technical elements are often simple in design, they are nicely executed and well rehearsed. The lighting effect utilized for a scene with the sun reminded me of sci-fi series from the 1950’s or 60’s.
The writing here, however, is the true star of the piece. The poem directly speaks to the angst of a child who “really, really, really wanted to meet his father, his real father.” He imagines him “with an overpowering presence that no one could deny.” It’s no small leap that he turns out to be one of the gods. That’s how the fictional Pim connects to Ovid’s poem. This section of the play and performance is a particular highlight. Headphones are recommended when watching as the sound effects (Caroline Eng) enhance the storytelling.
Character transitions are always thoughtful and occasionally outstanding. (I’ll not reveal too much here.) A simple switch to the Scholar finds Mr. Redfield seating next to a shelf with books. Perithemus is “a bit prickly, he had friends, who also saw the world as predictable phenomena.” A child grows and finds his tribe. Many are successful. Perithemus’ storyline has his world turned upside down. How significantly? “He felt electricity over his skin.”
An example of the gorgeous prose: “And Perithemus felt a firework flower swell inside his entire body and turn it into tingling lights, for the first time, he was higher than the clouds and he could see everything at once, every person who has ever kissed every other person in all of time, just for a moment – before falling slowly, blissfully back into the gravity of the supermassive object his lips has just tasted.”
Is Mr. Redfield’s performance as blissful as that kiss? That’s a big ask. I did enjoy and admire certain segments and characterizations more than others. As an entire concept, however, there is beauty in the language and in the analysis of one’s place in the world and in the journey to get there. The influence your parents had – and have – on your very existence and the way you perceive the world, for better or for worse.
Pim’s Metamorphoses captures this particular moment in time by creating a theatrical, whimsical and profound link to our socially distanced and isolated lives. Now is as good a time as any to try this: “He woke up as something else.”
Pim’s Metamorphoses is being performed live digitally though January 31, 2021.