Stage and Cinema
- Highly Recommended
"...No doubt director and writer Mary Zimmerman has always been attracted to epic tales because of their universal themes, adapting them for the theater in über-inventive productions. These tales, ancient or otherwise, also express conceptions of right and wrong behavior ("morals" for those who have forgotten what they are). While Zimmerman has created shows based on inspirational figures (Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci), she is best-known for her trademark cheeky and humorous twists on the classics: The Arabian Nights (my favorite); The Odyssey; The White Snake; Mirror of the Invisible World; and especially Metamorphoses, which won Zimmerman a 2002 Tony Best Director nod and is currently receiving a breathtaking revival that justifies itself from the first minute on at Pasadena's A Noise Within."
Stage Scene LA
- Highly Recommended
"...A Noise Within closes its 2021-2022 season with what may well be the classical theater company's most breathtakingly gorgeous production ever, Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphoses."
On Stage Los Angeles
- Highly Recommended
"...I was so wrapped up in the show, I failed to take many notes. There is one terrific battle scene in the pool that sent front row patrons scurrying to dryer realms."
Night Tinted Glasses
- Highly Recommended
"...I'm going to cut straight to the chase. Go see Metamorphoses at A Noise Within theatre if you possibly can. Never mind about movies with great CGI or retellings of fun legends in a comic book vein. Those are not bad things, not by any stretch of the imagination."
Showmag
- Highly Recommended
"...The whimsical compendium of Greek myths found in Metamorphoses makes just the right vehicle for a return to the magic of live theatre. As if we need an excuse, A Noise Within understands that we should be charmed, not burdened with the trauma of the day. And co-artistic director Julia Rodriguez-Elliott provides just the right notes to guide us through some of the most iconic of Ovid's tales as compiled by Mary Zimmerman in this Tony-award winning tale."
Stage Raw
- Highly Recommended
"...Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphoses, adapted from David R. Slavitt's translation of Ovid's The Metamorphoses, is a scholarly work. First produced in 1998, and winning Zimmerman a Tony Award for Best Director in 2002, the play calls upon ancient Greek mythos and its pantheon. Well-known examples like King Midas, Aphrodite, and Orpheus take the stage alongside lesser-known or sometimes nameless characters. The figures and stories are archetypal in nature, and are woven together fluidly."
Peoples World
- Highly Recommended
"...Metamorphoses premiered in 1998 at Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre, the same year Zimmerman received the MacArthur Fellowship (the "Genius" grant). It then went on to a Broadway production in 2002 that garnered a Tony Award for Zimmerman as director, at the same time earning Drama Desk, Drama League, and Lucille Lortel awards for Best Play. The current production of this rarely revived work at A Noise Within is superbly directed by Julia Rodriguez-Elliott."
Ticket Holders LA
- Highly Recommended
"...I should have trusted that anything produced by ANW, with direction by the company's co-artistic director Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and designed by Francois-Pierre Couture, would be spectacular. Within minutes of watching the castmembers reciting their well-known folk tales while bathing, playfully dangling their feet in the water, making slippery and sensual love, or soaking Gary Lennon's shimmering gowns and revealing togas in the onstage pool under Ken Booth's mysterious lighting, and my soul was happy cleansed of the horrific memory of the night before."
Larchmont Buzz
- Highly Recommended
"...A Noise Within wins big with Metamorphoses. The Pasadena theater company takes something beloved and familiar-Ovid's masterwork-and gives it a resonant update. It's ambitious and audacious, having the nerve to challenge the work to prove its continued relevance and more than meeting the challenge."
Broadway World
- Highly Recommended
"...And best, seamed together by perfectly interwoven stories that come around full circle, the show is 90 minutes in total yet the pacing is thoroughly engaging for a not-a-second-withered one-hour feeling making A Noise Within's METAMORPHOSIS absolutely satisfying to the core."
