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On Stage: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

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On stage just in time for Halloween and its otherworldly preoccupations is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. Directed by the theater’s artistic director Brian B. Crowe, this haunting production (sorry!) opened October 25 and runs through November 16.

We’re familiar with the story of hubristic doctor Victor Frankenstein and his determination to create life. For two centuries, his experiment-gone-awry has prompted consideration of the limits of science, the difference between a man and a monster, and, in our current AI-obsessed era, what it means to be human. Astonishingly, Mary Shelley began writing this consequential story when she was only 18!

Author David Catlin frames Shelley’s story using the circumstances under which it was written. Mary was engaged in an affair with the married Percy Bysshe Shelley, and had borne him a daughter who died in infancy. The couple struggled financially and decamped to Geneva in 1816. That year, a huge volcanic eruption in Indonesia blackened skies worldwide. It was “the year without a summer.” Crops failed, livestock starved. In Switzerland, incessant rain. An uneasy time. They lived for a few months on Lake Geneva with poet Lord Byron, his physician, and Mary’s step-sister, Claire, Byron’s lover. To amuse themselves, they read and wrote ghost stories, and the result was not only Mary’s chilling tale but also John Polidori’s The Vampyre.

The STNJ cast takes on not only the roles of Shelley’s characters, but also the idle, somewhat bored, yet competitive authors. Actor Amber Friendly plays Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (and Elizabeth); Sean-Michael Wilkinson is Shelley (and Victor Frankenstein); Jay Wade is Lord Byron (and the creature); and Brooke Turner is Claire (and Victor’s mother). The actors switch convincingly between these roles, with Neil Redfield (as Dr. Polidori and Henry and others) especially adept at immediately conveying different personas.

You cannot watch Wade’s athletic performance without sympathy for the creature’s yearning, his anger and confusion. Nor how Victor, preoccupied with his experiments, is heedless of their potential consequences, including how his monomania affects those he loves and denies him his own full humanity. Meanwhile, Elizabeth is a model of constancy in an uncertain world, hoping for but not expecting love. The story proceeds toward its tragic ending with the occasional intrusions by the poets and “real-life” characters, often foreshadowing their own fates. Women were not so simple, Mary believed, that they were free of dark impulses, and she proves it with her famous story.

STNJ has resisted the trend of providing patrons with a QR code instead of a printed program, and its nice biography of Mary Shelley is a thoughtful addition. The theater’s productions are hosted at Drew University in Madison, N.J. (easily reachable from NYC by train). For tickets, call the box office at 973-408-5600 or visit the Box Office online.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

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McCarter Theatre in Princeton imported the exciting new play, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein from Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre Company. It opened October 19 and runs through the Halloween season until November 3. Written and directed by David Catlin, the play contextualizes the familiar story of Victor Frankenstein and his ill-fated creature by grounding it in the strange and tragic life of the story’s author, Mary Shelley. More than a tale of horror, it’s a tale of deep woe.

The five characters are Mary Shelley herself (played by Cordelia Dewdney), her half-sister, Claire Claremont (Amanda Raquel Martinez), her lover and, later, husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley (Walter Briggs), and the couple’s friends, Dr. John Polidori (Debo Balogun) and Lord Byron (Keith D. Gallagher).

During a sojourn on Lake Geneva, the ominously stormy skies fire the characters’ imaginations. Byron suggests they each pen a ghost story to see which is scariest. Only 18 when she begins writing Frankenstein, Mary’s life is already marked by terrible events, including the deaths of her mother from childbed fever and her own first baby. Mary’s real-life sorrows help shape her narrative and, as the five characters enact her gothic fantasy, reality breaks through at poignant moments.

Mary’s tale demonstrates the folly of trying to play god. Victor Frankenstein wants to be “the Modern Prometheus,” to bring the spark of life to the creature he’s assembled. Much tragedy occurs before he recognizes he hasn’t grappled with the possible unintended, bad consequences. (Is this a cautionary tale for today, with respect to artificial intelligence and genetic manipulation?)

Nor does Victor (nicely ironic choice of name) take responsibility for the monster. He viciously rejects him, yet the monster’s relentless pursuit of his creator contains an element of devotion. “I would have loved to be your son,” he laments. Thus, we are confronted with a truth Mary expresses: “Within every man there is a monster; within every monster, a man.”

The play’s emotional experience is intensified by the reconfigured theater space. McCarter undertook the massive task of removing several rows of seats and moving the stage forward, to create an “in-the round” effect. (Watch this amazing transformation here.)

Most of the company comes direct from the Lookingglass production. All strong players, they manage the dramatic aerial features and give the characters richness and three-dimensionality. Though all are excellent, Gallagher delivers an unforgettable portrayal of the monster.

McCarter Theatre is easily reached from New York by car or train (New Jersey Transit to the Princeton Junction station, then the shuttle train into Princeton. The shuttle ends a short walk from the theater and the university’s new arts district. For tickets, call the box office at 609-258-2787 or visit the ticket office online.