Madeline H. D. Brown has loved Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis since reading it as a sophomore in high school.

“It was so stark and simple,” she said about the story of a man who wakes up as a bug. “Even the descriptions were simple. The understatedness of it appealed to me. We weren’t just looking at the event itself, but instead everything orbiting and satellitieng around that. I was already interested in acting and that just made the characters so much more alive.”

Now Brown is appearing as the mother in the play, in previews at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley starting June 10 and opening June 16. 

It wasn’t just the play, but the director and the theater that appealed to Brown.

“I’ve been a big fan of Mark Jackson’s work,” she said about the director of the play. “And I’ve enjoyed stuff at the Aurora, so this seemed like a really great cocktail.”

Brown says there’s lots of humor in this version of a story about alienation.

“There are moments that are so horrible and scary and daunting you have no choice but to smile or laugh or make a joke,” she said.

She thinks the 1950s family masking their emotions about the bizarre situation they’re in is also funny.

“Society expects a certain face and that juxtaposed with what’s going on with Gregor, our son upstairs, is where all the humor comes out,” Brown said.