Monster (2002)

MONSTER
by Neal Bell, based on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
directed by Jim Petosa

Victor Frankenstein … Michael Kaye
The Creature … John Zdrojeski
Elizabeth … Britian Seibert
Walton; Clerval … Tim Spears
Father; Forster … Stephen Elrod
Mother; Justine … Cloteal L. Horne
Cat; William … Jake McLean

Time: The early 1800s.
Somewhere in the Arctic Ocean and Europe.

Neal Bell’s MONSTER is not so much an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN (1818) than an overheated fantasia on it. Though Ms. Shelley led a somewhat tempestuous life, she might have been shocked to see her heroine dripping her first menstrual blood before her beloved, to hear her creature bellow, “Why did he give me a cock?”, and to realize that she was not really writing about God versus Science but, rather, a dark male-male love story which ends with creator and creation expiring together in a fiery embrace. This may all sound new and daring, but it really isn’t: the Living Theatre and other avant-garde troupes were spinning plays’ subtexts into text in the 1960s and 70s – the difference being that those troupes had good and angry reasons for their deconstructions whereas MONSTER gives the impression that Mr. Bell read FRANKENSTEIN, didn’t care for it, and rewrote it to his own liking.

The Boston Center for American Performance’s production brought back memories of my own student-actor days when the New York experimental scene had begun to seep into colleges: forty years ago, my theatre department did an improvisational production of BAAL in its multi-level-in-the-round environmental theatre – this may not have been Bertolt Brecht’s BAAL but, at the time, who cared: it offered bared breasts, homoeroticism, and “real” things like one actor spitting in another actor’s face – it was an evening of DANGEROUS theatre. Every young adult needs some DANGEROUS theatre in his or her life, at least once, so BCAP’s MONSTER may well prove dangerous enough to BU students (happily, there were quite a few in the audience); under Jim Petosa’s direction, the student cast gropes and clutches to the nth degree whereas only the Creature should do most of the groping, being the primal force that he is (to the actors’ credit, they interact without fear or embarrassment). Mr. Petosa has failed to orchestrate his actors’ declamation, especially that of Michael Kaye (Frankenstein) and John Zdrojeski (the Creature) who square off several times and shred their vocal chords, though Mr. Zdrojeski makes some impressive sounds and twitches when coming to life and when mortally stabbed. Adrienne Carlile has correctly garbed her cast, period-wise, but her womanly costumes are cancelled out by her actresses who play their roles as anything but womanly (is it such a debasement, nowadays, for an actress to play a period role as sweet, docile, charming, feminine, with a voice “ever soft and low, an excellent thing in a woman”? must all female characters in corsets now be trotted out as suffragettes or valkyries?)

Still, I was impressed with these seven young artists – their training and potential held my interest. I hope some, if not all, of them choose to stay in the Boston area upon graduation. “My dear, my dear, it is not so dreadful here …”

“Monster” (9-25 February 2012)
BOSTON CENTER FOR AMERICAN PERFORMANCE
Boston University Theatre, Lane-Comley Studio 210
264 Huntington Avenue, BOSTON, MA
Tickets: (617) 933-8600
website: http://www.bu.edu/cfa