The melancholic strains of ‘Clair de Lune’ fill the theatre space with plumes of smoky-mist swirling around on the empty stage; such gentle pre-show suggestiveness leans into more of the Romantic, before it begins properly and charges into tropes of the Gothic thriller in this adaptation of Frankenstein at Princess Theatre. Shake and Stir’s production is a reprisal that premiered last year in Brisbane to acclaim. It’s a patchwork of classic text stitched with modern technology.
For those who barely remember Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, it should be pointed out that it is not a straightforward chronological text, but framed as a series of letters (as well as memories and flashbacks). Set it in the 18th century, it first documents the correspondence from Captain Robert Walton to his sister, as he and his crew rescue Victor Frankenstein (Darcy Brown) from an ice floe in the Arctic Ocean, where he is in desperate pursuit of the murderous creature that he has created. Frankenstein then recounts his sorry tale to Walton as a precautionary tale of the ills of obsessively seeking knowledge.
This preamble is important to know because the production sticks closely to Shelley’s teasing, scaffolding technique, including a brief interlude that takes in the young man’s affluent background and his subsequent studies in natural philosophy and chemistry, before moving to the scenes we all know best: the ones of the crazy scientist, with a glint in his eye, elbow-deep in the bloody innards of a composite of dead bodies and the whizz-bang of electrical currents sparking a reanimation.
Brown has the right balance of curiosity, passion and paranoia in his portrayal of a necromancer who is fanatically keen to explore the outer reaches of science, but without thinking through the moral implications of his own actions.
It takes about half an hour before the creature (Jeremy Wray) makes his first appearance and the suspense is worth it. To the accompaniment of thunder and a suite of pyrotechnical effects (with live explosions), this heavily scarred, grey-skinned humanoid becomes sentient – his first pitiful attempts of trying to stand and move, like a slippery fish on land and then a newborn foal, are deeply moving. His face is heavily shrouded to begin with, to add to the mystery.
Right from the outset it’s evident that the collusion of sound and lighting design is the propulsive force of this production. The set is on a revolve, with characters moving in and out, and from the stormy, ice-bound ship at the start, to the experimentations in Frankenstein’s charnel house, dull, low light is the preferred medium; at times the stage is suffused with chiaroscuro worthy of a Rembrandt.
Such darkness is offset with the lightness of Frankenstein’s childhood home, the Swiss alps and seasonal changes of the woods depicted by moving-picture panels displaying video snippets not dissimilar to those used in Kip William’s Gothic trilogy: The Picture of Dorian Gray, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Dracula. These insertions lend a cinematic scope to the stage.
A couple of quibbles. The development of the creature (as in the novel, he is nameless and often called a number of hateful terms like “devil”, “monster” and “demon”) is fast-tracked. One moment he’s gurgling and non-verbal; the next, he is eloquent and speaking in full, coherent sentences. Shelley spends a bit of time in her book noting how he comes to language through book-learning. Yes, it’s one of the weaker elements of the narrative – how he can be self-tutored so quickly – but in the show we’re only really shown him learn via osmosis. This he does by eavesdropping on a family he comes across in their hut in the woods, and listening to them read to each another, in particular and most pointedly, from Milton’s Paradise Lost.
The time spent on building the humanity of this “fallen angel”, as he comes to see himself, through the getting of speech and acts of kindness, seems to be sacrificed for the more violent, vengeful impulses, when he meets with prejudice and revulsion. If we are to fully empathise with him, the friendless, loveless creature needs to be a bit more fully realised.
Too much time, conversely and gratuitously, is spent on the fate of a woman who faces the gallows after being deliberately framed by him for murder.
Which is not to say Wray is not a masterful actor. In make-up made of stitched-up parts, his carriage and movements are aligned with someone trying to figure out how to interact with his environment. The stand-off between the two men – Brown as Frankenstein is boyish, slight of figure, while his creation is larger and stronger – is a clash of ego, might and manipulation.
In a feat of versatility, aside from Wray and Brown, four other actors play an assortment of characters between them, with special mention to Chloé Zuel, as Frankenstein’s childhood friend and, later, bride. Elizabeth does not have that much stage time, but when she’s on, her vulnerability, strength and compassion are on display.
There is a tendency towards overuse of the smoke machine for atmosphere generation – must all appearances of the scientist and his creation be heralded and suffused by fog? There’s also possibly a little too much reliance on the use of large-scale video, which can distract from the actions on stage.
Nonetheless this is an impressive production. Shake & Stir is known to play around with the classics, having adapted novels like Jane Eyre and A Christmas Carol. Its version of Frankenstein remains largely faithful to the narrative integrity of Shelley’s book while introducing modern multimedia to tell its tale.
Read: Theatre review: Milk and Blood, fortyfivedownstairs
With the collective contemporary anxieties around AI, Shelley’s science-fiction and its explorations of non-human possibilities and probabilities, will forever be relevant.
Producers Shake & Stir Theatre Co and John Frost for Crossroads Live present
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Princess Theatre
Adapted by Nelle Lee
Director: Nick Skubij
Creative Producer: Ross Balbuziente
Designer: Josh McIntosh
Lighting Designer: Trent Suidgeest
Sound Design and Composter: Guy Webster
Video Designer: Craig Wilkinson
Movement and Fight Director: Nigel Poulton
Creature Make up Design: Steven Boyle
Cast: Darcy Brown, Jeremiah Wray, Chloé Zuel, Anna Lise Phillips, Tony Cogin, Nick James
Tickets: $59.90 – $169.90
Frankenstein will be performed until 1 September 2024 in Melbourne before touring to Theatre Royal Sydney from 28 September 28 to 13 October.
