A PLAY based on a classic text by Franz Kafka will “shed new light on the complexity and contradiction of modernity” as it tours Scotland this spring. The Metamorphosis, a co-production between Scotland’s Vanishing Point and Italy’s Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione (ERT), is based on Kafka’s 1915 novella about a man who wakes up one morning to find he’s an insect.

Italian actor Nico Guerzoni leads an international cast in the main stage production at Glasgow’s Tron, before transferring to theatres in Edinburgh, Dundee and Inverness in April.

A two-hander version of the show will tour smaller venues across the country before finishing back at the Tron.

“Tron Theatre has been a crucial partner for Vanishing Point over the years,” says artistic director Matthew Lenton.

“Many of our early formative works were performed there, and over the years we have returned often. This is our first co-production and we are very excited to be able to work with such powerhouses of theatre – one in our home city and the other one of Europe’s leading theatre organisations.”

Claudio Longhi, ERT director, says he was “immediately impressed” by Lenton’s company’s work and that their co-production presents “one of the most interesting texts of world literature with a fresh and unpredictable style, shedding new light on the complexity and contradiction of modernity”.

The Metamorphosis: Unplugged tour will be helmed by Joanna Bowman, Vanishing Point’s first appointee to a scheme supporting new directors.