BUG: Waiting for Gregor

BUG is the master's thesis work (KASK) of Alicia Andries and Max Colonne. It uses Kafka’s Metamorphosis, a novel about one man, Gregor Samsa, and his transformation into an insect as a starting point. However, this time Gregor’s existential crisis is interpreted as a virus, a bug that latches on to the whole family, which is at the center of the play.

The play opens with a quote from Metamorphosis given by what later appears to be a butler of sorts (Nick Baeyens), and a loud buzzing noise. The viewer is placed right in Kafka’s novel, the given sentence conveniently summarizing the state of the affairs that the family and thus the spectator find themselves in; a man from an average middle-class family has been transformed into a bug. Funnily enough, there’s a fly franticly circling in front of one of the bright, clinical lights; an accident, maybe, but a very symbolic one at that.

Painstakingly slowly the table, standing in the middle of the stage, is set for a family’s meal. White plates, forks, knifes and petite apéritif glasses are loudly slammed by the butler while a young woman seated at the table, the daughter (Alicia Andries), is grinning. She looks friendly at first, but her friendliness is detached, it’s merely paper-thin politeness. She’s impatient, wriggling in her chair, loudly exhaling. A mysterious tin box and two jars of milk are placed, then switched, the butler takes an evaluating look and goes behind the music controller. The father (Max Colonne), and mother (Bavo Buys) enter and take their seats too. The father demands some music, the butler starts some inconspicuous muzak. The father opens a newspaper – it’s just a bunch of blank sheets – while the mother is grinning even more unnaturally, her face stretched like the white tablecloth on the table or their repetitive cyclical conversation, where no one seems to say anything of consequence as they don’t listen to one another. The rising prices, indexation, economy, the rising prices, indexation, economy… The daughter is asking for money and her parents’ attention, “I’ve been here all this time” she repeats. The family and so the audience are waiting for Gregor: where’s the bug, one might think.

Very much like in the book, Gregor’s condition is unspoken of, it’s the elephant in the room that no one addresses. When his name finally appears, it comes from the mother and her belief that Gregor will pay the indexation, Gregor will be there to save them, Gregor will take action so they can just keep on sitting and remain passive. The long and arduous opening scene and mother’s naivete make the viewers understand that very much like Beckett’s Godot, Gregor won’t ever come. Or rather, he will never appear in a physical form, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist. The viewer is encouraged to see the bug in the system that the family is operating in, that it was there all along (remember the fly at the beginning?). And so the play unravels and we begin to see the bug manifesting itself in two ways: through lack and a paradoxical abundance. This bug is what derails the family’s cyclical minutia.

Throughout the play there are foreboding hints that warn us about the possible bug in the system. It’s the apéritif glasses that are overfilled with milk, it’s mother’s exaggerated sneezing – after the third time father actually exclaims “Mazel tov!” and breaks a plate. These peaks, in the otherwise flat line of the family’s life, resonate to a breaking point when the first and the last meal of the play is served. The daughter climbs on the table, grabs one of the jugs and passionately jerks off the milk all around and on herself. The parents by now are wearing goggles: yet another way of detaching themselves from what’s happening. However, during this scene the mysterious tin box is opened. The daughter joyfully throws cornflakes as confetti all around the table and serves cereal for breakfast. When the father stands up, the audience laughs, his rear end is covered in cornflakes. This scene thus becomes impossible to avoid; goggles or not, it sticks to you.

This outrageous glitch riggers three solo performances by the actors where they all experience breakdowns. During these breakdowns the viewer observes disturbing but recognizable emotional anguish, the daughter poignantly reenacting Munch’s “The Scream” and simultaneously addressing the lack of acknowledgment of her existence. The creators make use of the more-than-100-year-old classical symbol of existential crisis, Gregor, to tell a story about us today. They juxtapose the emptiness of mundanity with its inescapable presence in our daily lives. The metamorphosis that shook up Gregor’s family then, is still relevant today. Contemporary people, however, live in a technological era, therefore they need a bug that would destabilize the system. BUG plays with themes of emptiness, detachment and passivity and very much like its predecessor it poses the question whether this system we live in is viable in the first place. Where does the bug even come from? Is it a product of our system or of our behavior in the system?