Those who sit in the front row of the Forum Theater for Metamorphoses should expect to get wet.
Metamorphoses, an adaptation of an Ovid poem detailing several Greek myths, is set in a pool. The budget to build the entire set was $2,900, said Aaron Contreras, technical director for Metamorphoses and a third-year graduate student studying production design and technology, in a previous Post article.
The pool and the planking that forms its perimeter cost about $2,400. The budget stems from the overall funding for the entire division’s production line of shows.
The show has an inflated budget because of the pool, Contreras said. Normally a set budget for a show is between $2,200 and $2,400.
Erin Hemming, set designer for Metamorphoses, said the pool holds about 4,000 gallons of water. The actors perform scenes in almost 3 feet of water and often fully immerse themselves in the pool.
Rebecca VerNooy, director of Metamorphoses and assistant professor of theater, said the pool added challenges to the production, but she said she would have never considered doing the play without it.
“A lot of things take on new meaning because they’re immersed in this element that is very transformative,” VerNooy said. “It’s a whole other show in the water. … The relationship between the stories and the text are deepened by being in the water.”
A large component the water adds to the play is the opportunity for movement as the actors parallel the fluidity of the pool.
“When you think about acting, you think about lines of text and memorizing and speaking those lines,” said Chelsea Cannon, a member of the Metamorphoses ensemble and a senior studying theater performance. “With movement, in whatever you’re working on, you get the text into your body. We don’t always give the body the time and effort that we should. But, Metamorphoses calls for that kind of work.”
Embodying the stories of Metamorphoses was something Tess Stevens said she found challenging yet rewarding.
“The show really pushed the cast to be able to harbor these kind of bigger than life presences like Zeus and Pandora,” said Stevens, a member of the Metamorphoses ensemble and a junior studying theater performance. “You embody something that is bigger than yourself. … It’s really been useful for not only exploration work and our major, but it’s also useful for everyday life.”
Although some students might worry that the stories of the play are too far-removed from themselves, VerNooy said the myths are much more relatable than one would think.
“All the morals in the myths are applicable to our lives now,” she said. “They’re about power, greed, love, loss, transformation and change.”
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