A new adaptation of the Frankenstein story is a monstrosity to be avoided says, Richard Davies...
OUR VERDICT
Do we need a new telling of the Frankenstein story? Rona Munro thinks we do. Her new adaptation of the gothic horror classic places its 18-year-old author, Mary Shelley centre stage – literally in the middle of the action.
But rather than use this device to offer insights into the story and what compelled her to write it, Munro’s Mary Shelley struts moodily about the stage, sucks on her pencil and scratches on her notepad. She is like an annoying teenager who has grabbed the TV remote control to interrupt your favourite old movie with endless self-regarding spoilers, “wait for this bit... it’s rea-lly horrible”.
So the first question is simply - why? In her foreword, Munro says that previous versions of Frankenstein had rendered Mary’s presence ‘invisible’ (not that surprising, given that the author does not actually appear in the original story), while others have dwelt too much on biographical details from the writer’s life, something to which Munro claims a “visceral aversion”.
Instead, Munro channels her inner Napoleonic-era teenager to state that “Mary would have been very happy to know she wrote a blockbuster that still delivers.” To this, I say ‘hokum’. And unfortunately, when you disagree with the basic premise of the play, it’s hard to find anything positive to say about what follows.
Frankenstein is often described as the first science fiction story, written when modern science was in its infancy; one generation after Luigi Galvani first sent an electric current down a frog’s spinal cord. Mary Shelley, was the daughter of early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft who died in childbirth, leaving her husband the political philosopher and free love advocate William Godwin to raise her and her sister.
Mary was also a free thinker, eloping at age 16 with the married romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Famously, she conceived Frankenstein in a ghost story competition, during a wet weekend that the couple spent with Lord Byron at his Lake Geneva chateau – possibly the most intriguing ‘birth story’ for any novel.
Frankenstein is based on the ancient myth of Prometheus, who defied the gods by giving fire to mortals and was sentenced to eternal torment; a cautionary tale for those who would challenge the natural order. It has become a modern myth, inspiring thousands of retellings from Boris Karloff’s lurching monster to Blade Runner and almost every story of cyborgs and artificial intelligence owes Mary Shelley a debt.
Sadly in this version, the mythic power of the story is lost, totally mangled in mindless ‘bant’ from the author/narrator. Under Patricia Benecke’s direction, the dials are turned up to the maximum in almost every scene. The result is that Eilidh Loan as Shelley and Ben Castle Gibb as Frankenstein jabber frantically from start until finish, feeding off each other’s nervous energy. They constantly climb up and down trees to change level for no particular reason on the two-tier set (why can’t they just use the stairs like normal people?).
Inevitably, our sympathies lie with the Monster who, deprived of his creator’s love, makes it his mission to eliminate all the other characters. Michael Moreland plays him like a deranged Marco Pierre White, forced to eat a diet of dishes prepared only by Gordon Ramsay. Natali McCleary alone stood out for her subtle performance of Frankenstein’s adopted sister, Elizabeth.
Looking around the audience huddled in the main aisle, there were a lot of school blazers and drama school students. Somehow, I can’t think that productions like this will do anything to inspire the next generation of theatre actors or audiences.
Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford (book here)
Dates: 5 Nov- 9 Nov
Ticket Prices: from £23.50
