AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF RED (2023) – METAMORPHOSIS THEATRE INC,

Adapted from Autobiography of Red, A Novel in Verse by Anne Carson

Geryon, a young boy who is also a red monster, reveals the volcanic terrain of his fragile, tormented soul in an autobiography he begins at the age of five. As he grows older, Geryon escapes his elder brother and affectionate but ineffectual mother, finding solace behind the lens of his camera and in the arms of a young man named Herakles, a cavalier drifter who leaves him at the peak of infatuation. When Herakles reappears years later, Geryon confronts again the pain of his desire and embarks on a journey that will unleash his creative imagination to its fullest extent. By turns whimsical and haunting, erudite and accessible, richly layered and deceptively simple, Autobiography of Red is a profoundly moving portrait of an artist coming to terms with the fantastic accident of who he is.

The award-winning poet Anne Carson reinvents a genre in a stunning work with Autobiography of Red. Carson based her Novel on surviving fragments of the Greek poet Stesichoros’s (c. 630 – 555 BC) poem, Geryoneis. This epic poem is reinterpreted by Dr. Omar Bhatkar and imagined for the stage with additional text, poems of Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Maya Angelou. The play is designed as an unconventional re-creation of an ancient Greek myth and a wholly original coming-of-age story using movement, music, haunting lyrical songs, and visual aesthetics.

‘Omkar Bhatkar works with a team of cast and crew as committed to existential ideas as himself. Together in Autobiography of Red they create unforgettable theatre”