THEATRE REVIEW: Not Your Great-grandpa’s Frankenstein
Nick Dear’s Frankenstein, adapted from the novel by Mary Shelley
By Dennis Wemm
THEATRE CRITIC
Presented by the Fredericksburg Theatre Ensemble, Directed by Joel McCormick
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a classic Romantic novel. Told in the first person by a ship’s captain to recount the story Victor Frankenstein, a doctor with a drive to create a human life, it’s an ultimate story of parental neglect and abandonment. It is significantly different from the Universal Pictures classic in a lot of ways, the most important of which is that the novel is not really a monster story. It’s a story about victimhood. Nick Dear’s adaptation of the novel is an attempt to retell the story without a lot of the narrative baggage that gets in the way of the main conflicts.
The play begins in dumb show: a naked human bearing the scars and sutures of surgery awakes, finding himself alone and in no control of his body. He struggles to move, to crawl, then to rise and stand. This goes on for several minutes. Another man enters, and seeing the first man he screams in terror and runs away, leaving the naked man to stand and then flee. Gradually he picks up pieces of clothing and experiences, learns, and begins to show the sign of a complex personality (his first experience of reading and literature is Paradise Lost which may give you a hint about his abilities). Unfortunately, all of his understanding doesn’t teach him impulse control, and he burns a family of benefactors to death in their home.
He realizes that he is lonely, but that because of his appearance he will never be loved, only feared. He assumes that all ordinary people will treat him with revulsion and that only someone as pieced together as he is will be able to be happy with him. The Creature requires that Victor create a bride for him, after which he will leave Victor alone. Like all his attempts at human decency the experiment succeeds at first but ends tragically.
The experience of this production is very complex. Entire scenes are played without speech, then quote segments of dialogue from the novel, then seem to be erudite discussions of highly complex philosophical topics. The narrative flow grows out of the Creature’s experiences of the moment, then switches to Victor Frankenstein’s point of view.
It’s a challenging but rewarding play to experience.
The production is simple: a set of screens and flats in various geometric shapes, furniture to indicate a laboratory, an office, a bedroom, all changed a vista. Lighting effects are very important and skilled in execution-it’s nice to see the Allstate space’s equipment used and handled in more and more complex ways. The visual elements are so well coordinated that it’s difficult to separate sets and lighting.
Sound and background music are simple and atmospheric. Costuming is both appropriate and accurate to the early 19th century (with occasional modern touches and embellishments to fulfill a specific need; Arctic survival, for instance). But in the end, the human experience of the characters is the true story.
This means that the casting and staging of humans is the most important element of the performance, and the performers and creative staff do not disappoint. The physical performances, especially by Marcus Lawrence as the Creature and Pam Gordet as the Female Creature are beautifully choreographed by Courtney Fox. Both violence and intimacy work (respectively by Cam Hovey and Benjamin Bryant) are just realistic enough to have a visceral effect on the audience while stylized enough that we are never disturbed for the actors.
The play deserves its violence warning, but I never felt at any moment that either that or the nudity were gratuitous or unnecessary to the story.
A large part of the scenes turn into debates or colloquies, a style that animates most of British devised theatre. The Creature will interact with most of the other characters, as will Victor: clashes of ideas are just as important as the personal fights. Most frequent are the Creature’s conflicts with his reanimator. Prior to their reunion he has encounters with people in the town, in the countryside, and elsewhere. Most of these end in either tragedy or disappointment. The Creature has every human attribute but good looks and impulse control. He also has a conscience but only after the fact. Because of these encounters, the Creature’s dearest hope is to be far away from ordinary people.
The majority of the characters in the play, as in most historical tragedies, exist as foils or exposition sponges. This is not a negative but a function of devised theatre itself, the job of the actors is to believably embody all of the characters. Since the play is a revenge plot, smaller roles tend to either victimizers or victims of the slighted main characters.
The DeLacey family are the first major victims. Father DeLacey (Trip Lloyd, who also doubles as Victor’s father) teaches the Creature to speak and to read. He is a Byronic romantic hero: blinded, he seeks to live apart from others with as little human contact as possible. His blindness and the Creature’s inability to communicate obviate the dangers for him, he sees the Creature as a victim of fate as he is himself. Felix (Jared Elton) and Agatha (Echo Bartholomew) DeLacey, his son and daughter in law, have no such limitations or philosophy, the Creature deliberately hides from them even as he insinuates himself into the family. The three end up victims, because the younger family members bring the prejudices of the townsfolk to the little household.
Victor’s long-suffering fiancé, also his cousin, is Elizabeth (Jayna Sanchez-Luca). She becomes the ultimate sacrifice to Victor’s hubris and the most tragic character in the piece. She simply wants an ordinary life but is caught between the Creature’s increasingly violent reactions to Victor’s rejection, and Victor’s increasingly violent reaction to the Creature’s. Sanchez-Luca is a strong voice of reason to the point where she nearly pulls the Creature back from the brink of the unforgivable by showing him mercy.
William Frankenstein (Taylor Boulton Kim), Victor’s younger brother, commits the sin of being Victor’s younger brother.
Pam Gordet’s courageous performance as the Female Creature (and a streetwalker named Gretel in an early street scene) show a poise and an understanding of the simplicity of female roles. Given no dialogue or motivation, Gordet’s brief appearances help show the heartless ambition and callous attitude to human life that motivate Victor’s hubris.
Others in the play present their roles with energy and serve to motivate the action of the main characters, while at the same time individuating their characters to make them have their own motivations. Andie Lang (as Clarice), Jaeden Cain (as Ewan and Gustav), Dawson Carneal (as Klaus and Rab), Kaye Buell (as a Maid and Townsperson), Cam Hovey (Servant, Townsperson), and Liam Thompson (servant, constable) bring energy and performance skill to their small roles. All provide a very important function, to act as the chorus and conscience to the main characters, and at the same time reflect the prejudices that reinforce both Victor’s and the Creature’s rage and single-minded self-destructive tendencies.
Mary Shelley’s masterwork has survived since 1818 and lived very well in the Allstate Community Theatre space.
Dennis Wemm is a retired professor of theatre and communication, having taught and led both departments at Glenville State College for 34 years. In his off time he was president and sometimes Executive Director of the West Virginia Theatre Conference, secretary and president of the Southeastern Theatre Conference, and generally enjoyed a life in theatre.
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