{"id":8218,"date":"2019-10-23T07:58:14","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T11:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8218"},"modified":"2019-11-05T07:43:34","modified_gmt":"2019-11-05T12:43:34","slug":"mary-shelleys-frankenstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8218","title":{"rendered":"Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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McCarter\nTheatre<\/a> in Princeton imported the exciting new play, Mary Shelley\u2019s\nFrankenstein<\/em> from Chicago\u2019s Lookingglass Theatre Company. It opened October\n19 and runs through the Halloween season until November 3. Written and directed\nby David Catlin, the play contextualizes the familiar story of Victor\nFrankenstein and his ill-fated creature by grounding it in the strange\nand tragic life<\/a> of the story\u2019s author, Mary Shelley. More than a tale of\nhorror, it\u2019s a tale of deep woe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The five characters are Mary\nShelley herself (played by Cordelia Dewdney), her half-sister, Claire Claremont\n(Amanda Raquel Martinez), her lover and, later, husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley (Walter\nBriggs), and the couple\u2019s friends, Dr. John Polidori (Debo Balogun) and Lord\nByron (Keith D. Gallagher). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a sojourn on Lake Geneva, the\nominously stormy skies fire the characters\u2019 imaginations. Byron suggests they each\npen a ghost story to see which is scariest. Only 18 when she begins writing Frankenstein<\/em>,\nMary\u2019s life is already marked by terrible events, including the deaths of her\nmother from childbed fever and her own first baby. Mary\u2019s real-life sorrows\nhelp shape her narrative and, as the five characters enact her gothic fantasy, reality\nbreaks through at poignant moments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mary\u2019s tale demonstrates the folly\nof trying to play god. Victor Frankenstein wants to be \u201cthe Modern Prometheus,\u201d\nto bring the spark of life to the creature he\u2019s assembled. Much tragedy occurs\nbefore he recognizes he hasn\u2019t grappled with the possible unintended, bad consequences.\n(Is this a cautionary tale for today, with respect to artificial intelligence\nand genetic manipulation?) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor does Victor (nicely ironic\nchoice of name) take responsibility for the monster. He viciously rejects him, yet\nthe monster\u2019s relentless pursuit of his creator contains an element of devotion.\n\u201cI would have loved to be your son,\u201d he laments. Thus, we are confronted with a\ntruth Mary expresses: \u201cWithin every man there is a monster; within every\nmonster, a man.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The play\u2019s emotional experience is\nintensified by the reconfigured theater space. McCarter undertook the massive\ntask of removing several rows of seats and moving the stage forward, to create\nan \u201cin-the round\u201d effect. (Watch this amazing\ntransformation here<\/a>.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the company comes direct\nfrom the Lookingglass production. All strong players, they manage the dramatic\naerial features and give the characters richness and three-dimensionality. Though\nall are excellent, Gallagher delivers an unforgettable portrayal of the\nmonster. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCarter Theatre is easily reached\nfrom New York by car or train (New Jersey Transit to the Princeton Junction\nstation, then the shuttle train into Princeton. The shuttle ends a short walk\nfrom the theater and the university\u2019s new arts district.\n\nFor tickets, call the box office at 609-258-2787\nor visit the ticket\noffice online<\/a>.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

McCarter Theatre in Princeton imported the exciting new play, Mary Shelley\u2019s Frankenstein from Chicago\u2019s 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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - an evening of theater that goes beyond the tale you think you know.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62,366,40,1160,104,147],"tags":[1664],"class_list":["post-8218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-authors","category-drama","category-fiction","category-horror","category-the-morgue","category-theater","tag-frankenstein"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Mary-Shelleys-Frankenstein.jpg?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-28y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8218"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8220,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8218\/revisions\/8220"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}