FRANKENSTEIN: THE RE-CREATION
written and directed by
Christopher Slater and Victoria Mills

Lancaster University Theatre Group
The Grand Theatre, St Leonardgate, Lancaster
Friday 25 and Saturday 26 February 2005

Dramatic writing and sensitive performance of a high order

New writing and a powerful theatrical experience
The latest offering from Lancaster University Theatre Group (LUTG), Frankenstein: The Re-Creation, is a double triumph.

First, it is a brand-new piece of writing, the work of the show's directors Christopher Slater and Victoria Mills. They have painstakingly created a fine adaptation (see their interview). Second, the production was a powerful theatrical experience to watch. The finely-nuanced interpretation of their eminently actable text came across vividly and strongly, with fine control and commitment from every single member of the cast and production team.

To begin, Slater & Mills' text is worthy of comment, simply because it is a highly accomplished piece of writing. They take key and choice elements of Mary Shelley's complex and dramatic plot of 1818 to render a faithful account of the doomed hero, the young Victor Frankenstein. Victor doesn't get on with his father and the reactionary, bourgeois trappings of the parental home. He goes to university, doesn't get on with his tutor, and goes ahead to plough his own furrow.

A familiar tale told with care and detail
Sounds familiar? It could just as easily have been Mary Shelley's own husband, the poet Percy Bysshe – or the youth in the Lancaster hall of residence or student flat next door. The social interest of this scenario is vividly depicted in their narrative, with both some finely-pitched domestic and social fun and the tenderness of the young Victor's first and only love. Even the haunting music, the stylish costumes, the sexy trailer and the period furniture on stage showed ample evidence of meticulous attention to detail from producers Clare Robinson and Barry Jones and their crew.

So, on our hero goes to Ingolstadt, where his intellectual and social precocity grow apace, but into a doomed arrogance. This culminates in his Promethean creation, assisted by the Burke-and-Hare activities of his ‘manservant' Igor, as Victor's brainchild ‘creature' slowly trembles into life and the first act reaches its dramatic end. As we sip our interval drinks, we know that, for Victor and everyone else associated with him, nothing can be the same again. Ever. Something of monumental import has, we feel, irrevocably, happened.

A horrifying destiny
As the second act moves forward, the horrifying destiny of the flawed young Victor continues its inevitable course as his Creature is unleashed on the world. This creation's peregrinations, the chaos they create, and Victor's pursuit/escape, are again finely written and played with pathos, wit and dignity. But as the killings mount up, even Elizabeth, the headstrong Victor's hapless financée, cannot stem the relentless tide of Victor's doom.

As the doomed trio of Victor, Elizabeth and the Creature are unable to resolve their loves, futures and fallibilities, nemesis – or the divine judgement – descends tragically on them all. In particular, Elizabeth meets a powerfully and movingly-staged end (I thought that only happened to rabbits – a masterly visual device that was excruciatingly audible too).

So what, you say – that's all in the story, and has all been done before in the innumerable takes on the tale, most of which are facile, sanitised, dated and implausible snippets of the multi-layered original epic narrative. Slater & Mills have skilfully selected the kernels of the familiar, yet at the same time preserved and re-created the detailed development of the story, and laced the whole with elegant and sparkling dialogue (‘don't scowl!) and real, moving touches of human passion.

Careful comedic contrasts
Their retelling has, rightly in my view, a healthy but restrained dose of comedy too. Comedy is, paradoxically, an intrinsic dimension of tragedy (see the role of the Fool in King Lear), bringing light and shade as an integral dimension of the narrative, and of the action we see on stage. Shakespeare, Chekov and, visually, Hitchcock were notably good at this technique.

Slater & Mills' version of the familiar tale is so also very powerful because of the extraordinary competence and inventiveness of the writing. Never over-writing or wasting a single word or gesture, their soundly-constructed plot has good shifts of tension, fine dialogue and – so difficult to write well – a keenly-developed, continuing feel of suspense. And on the stage - the acid test - it works so much better dramatically than many other professionally-written takes on the ‘classics' I have seen.

A fine performance
What about the production? Under Slater & Mill's intelligent and clear direction, every single one of the seventeen cast gave fine performances, both in the smaller parts as well as in the major roles. This is always a good indicator of ‘company strength'. The devil's in the detail, as Slater and Mills, like Ian Hastings at The Dukes, clearly know.

David de Konig (Frankenstein), Courtney Ryan (Elizabeth) and relative newcomer (another one – where do they find them all?) Jamie Snetsinger (The Creature) all delivered their leading roles with integrity and careful passion. But another critic reviewing this production felt that Igor (Brad Cassidy) stole the show. In the play's wider dramatic impact, nothing could be further from the truth. His portrayal of the deformed ‘manservant' was a paradigm of controlled lunacy (LUTG is good at that – think Anarchist and Wyrd Sisters), and he, like everyone and everything else about the performance, never succumbed to the temptation of farce or gave in to travesty.

Brave new world?
There was some great comedy, sure – and the audience loved it. But amid the laughter was the knowledge that doom and disaster were never far away. The humour slowly, inexorable, moved seamlessly into fear, panic and moral disintegration. Ultimately, the Shelleys' creation and the depredation of the ‘brave new world' of the wilful Victor as he took on God, were wonderfully reconstructed and delivered by Slater, Mills and their team in a production that had an epic, universal yet very immediate appeal.

But in all that, and despite the familiarity of the story, a sense of immediate relevance in our nuke-infested, GM-manipulated planet of today, a sense of a terrifying imminent disaster of unimaginable scale, was never far away.

A literary, dramatic and visual triumph.

Copyright © 3 March 2005 Michael Nunn