At Angelo Civic Theatre, the cast and crew of “Frankenstein” are going through dress rehearsals ahead of opening night Oct. 24.
In full monochromatic makeup (except for the creature), this adaptation of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel comes from a 1982 adaptation by Victor Gialanella, performed in two acts with a running time of just over 100 minutes.
The original novel is almost 207 years old, and has an interesting history of its own.
According to literary lore, the young author based her story on conversations she overheard, myths, legends, and scientific developments of the day.
“Supremely frightful,” she said, “would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the creator of the world.”
Director Stoddard Owens and crew are getting to work putting the horror on the stage: you can catch the performance on stage at the Angelo Civic Theatre for the next two weeks:
Q and A with Cast and Crew:
Stoddard Owens, Director.
What are some of the differences between the original book and this stageplay?
“Really, the only difference is they made it work on a stage. At the end of the book, I think the creature floats off on an iceberg? Yeah, that’s not what happens in this one. Death and destruction for all, which is kind of better if you ask me.”
How should we think about the creature?
“I mean, let’s say there is no afterlife and you just died: all of a sudden you wake up, you’re in incredible pain. You’ve got a brain from one person, a heart from another, pain in your chest from all these surgeries. Wouldn’t that be the worst?
“I don’t think people understand the horror of being the creature. This show really plays up the pathos. He’s a very sympathetic character, until he’s not.”
Favorite Movie Adaptation?
“The original 1933 and that’s because it’s the first one I ever saw. The one with Boris Karloff.
“By the way, the creature was green in that, but of course he wasn’t green in the movie: he was black and white. That paint was to make him look right on black and white film, but the creature wasn’t green.
“Only when they took promotional pictures, that was the only time you saw the creature with green skin.”
The original novel, and this adaptation, avoids the stereotypical green monster with two bolts protruding from the head. Instead, it’s a lifelike sewn together monstrosity, with long black hair and discolored eyes.
Shannon Dennis, Action Choreographer.
Where do you start choreographing a fight scene on stage?
“The most important thing with fight choreography is safety, you don’t want people getting hurt. Which should be obvious, but I don’t think it always is in stage productions.
“I started training with fight choreography when I was 10, I learned the safety protocols.
“The victim always controls the violence. On stage, it looks like someone is being thrown, being hurt; but they are the ones controlling how much of that action is getting close to their bodies.
“The youngest in a fight scene is 10 years old and the oldest is in their 60s but they’re all handling it well.”
How do you direct child actors?
“With kids, they have a natural ability to play. And they’re better at playing pretend a lot of the time, getting fully immersed without being embarrassed about trying new things, and they don’t have the ego of adults.
“In some ways working with a child actor can be easier because they’re more ready and excited.
“They’ve had less life experience, so you explain more things to them. But sometimes you have to do that with adults.”
Tate McMillan, acting as The Creature.
What is the Creature going through?
“The creature himself, from the moment you see him on stage he is born again. He’s a child who’s going through these things for the first time.
“He’s experiencing these things that make humanity through sin, so with each scene I tried to think ‘what is he learning here?’ From the moment we see him get that childlike wonder, and he instantly loses it, and then he faces the reality of life and death.
What do you like about the character?
“I read the book every year. I decided this year to read the original 1818 text.
“I love getting show these little details of him finding the wonder in the world, and seeing what it is to be human…finding the tenderness in the being, and this script does a really good job of showing the monster that is growing into an intellectual person.”
In the novel, when the Creature escapes he learns how to read, and ponders on works by Plutarch, and books like Paradise Lost.
Aiden Brooks, as Victor Frankenstein.
What’s one side of Victor that you don’t see in a lot of the adaptations?
“More often than not when people think of Frankenstein they think of the Universal monster movie: in that Victor is definitely entertaining, but he’s more of your typical mad scientist.
“That can come across as very one dimensional as far as characters go. Thers some of that, but there’s a lot more justification in this as Victor is more of a young upstart in this than an crazy old scientist.”
What’s scary about Victor other than his Creature?
“The version of Victor I’m portraying has a lot of pride. He has a lot of pride in his intelligence, accomplishments, and he takes the things around him for granted. Like his sister and fiancé. He sets them aside for this project. And he’s met full force with his consequences.
“You thought so much about what you could do with something, you never stopped to see if you should do it.”
1816: It was a cold, rainy summer…
In 1816, Mary Shelley likely didn’t know she was about to write the first great work of science fiction in history, or the first great horror novel, or even one of the greatest Romantic (with a capital R) stories of all time.
When she was 17 she started seeing a man named Percy Shelley: a poet, a politician, and an atheist (oh my), who was already married.
They ran off to Europe together with Mary’s stepsister Claire Clairmont, where they engaged in the kind of stuff swells did in that time, probably lots of carriage rides. Including one past a castle in Germany named Castle Frankenstein, where Mary heard tales about an mysterious alchemist who used to live there.
When they returned to England, Mary was pregnant with Percy’s baby, and the rest was history.
Mary would eventually lose the child, and in the years that followed, was visited time and again by a vision of her cradling her child that didn’t make it. Perhaps forming a seed in her mind about the ability to control life and death.
In 1816, the couple visited the continent again, this time with Lord Byron and another friend of theirs, a doctor by the name of John Polidori.
It just so happened that this year was going to be “the year without a summer”, as a volcanic eruption in Indonesia caused massive weather shifts over the continent of Europe. This meant a lot of free time while the gang were confined indoors. And what else could you do in 1816 but start a novel writing competition?
In her own words, she wanted to write a story that “speaks to the mysterious fear of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror”.
She was inspired one night when Percy and Lord Byron were up late, discussing recent scientific developments about electricity and biology. Pointing to a theory at the time that was held by many scientists in high esteem: that the dead could be reanimated through electricity.
Mary went to bed that night and experienced a waking dream: “I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy half vital motion. Frightful, must it be.”
Perhaps the most productive summer in spooky story history, as the story that Mary wrote: “Frankenstein, The Modern Prometheus” would become maybe one of the most heavily adapted stories of all time, with well over 100 film versions. And then, lest we forget, their doctor friend Mr. Polidori who wrote a little story called “The Vampyre”, which would later go on to be the basis for Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”.
