Art-Full Life

What happens when two sets of talented actors/directors swap theater venues?  Sometimes the play feels even more exciting. A fresh space inspires an unexpected dynamic among the director and the actors, and between the performers and the audience.

So it was last week when Ric Royer from the LOF/t at Load of Fun directed Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley at the Annex Theater. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley is the first in a three-part project, Uncanny Valley Frankenstein,by the transdisciplinary collective Performance Thanatology. 

After we all took our seats in the cavernous loft space, Ric explained the challenges he had set for himself in this new space: developing the set and confining his role to Director rather than performer. All of this was pronounced with gravitas, but I should have guessed that there would be some really amusing moments in this 45-minute play. Yes, Frankenstein can be funny.

Of course, if you know Ric, you know he had to perform. The magic of this play was that we, as the audience, were there to experience Ric-the-Director and the actors as they developed an evolving performance. Ric prompted dialogue and action, and the actors responded, sometimes with unanticipated results. No two performances of this play would ever be quite the same. 

The set read as an installation piece, or perhaps as a painting that developed slowly before our eyes.  Projected images shifted with the action. Several leafless tree branches dangled and two reflective mirrors hung in thin air, sometimes swaying, as did bright light bulbs. Periodically, someone rushed on stage and set them in motion. A set for a fake TV game show “Love Dummies” stood off to the side. Its floor was littered with lemons that rolled perilously across the stage.

To begin, three ambiguous figures walked awkwardly on stage and took their seats facing us.  At first, they seemed frozen. I wondered: Are they humans or automatons? Then they spoke through clenched teeth, like ventriloquists, their words rendered unclear. Their live voices were overcome by a more fluid recording of their voices speaking the same words. As the play progressed, the characters referred to hideous and unspeakable acts—the creation and actions of the monster Frankenstein.

For the uninitiated, British writer Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley wrote Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus in 1818, creating a terrifying figure whose exploits still fascinate us today. The play takes up Frankenstein’s theme of the divided self, so that the monster and his creator become doubles or doppelgängers, who simultaneously pursue and flee from one another. This is, as the program explains, about how thinking unleashes terrors. 

This storyline was conveyed as much through imagery and movement as it was through words. The actors, instructed conspicuously by Ric, lurched around the stage in succession. Two Mary Wollstonecraft Shelleys pursued each other and Frankenstein. All characters were seeking a fulfillment or completion that they never achieved.

Each of the actors delivered an amazing performance—Joe Meduza, in drag, scary but glamorous; Owen Brightman, alternately funny and frightening, his voice reaching into deep, dark places; and Jackie Milad, even in silence incredibly compelling. Sound, lights, and recordings wove the tale into a cohesive whole.

If you missed this, you can still catch two other innovative performances that explore the power of movement to convey emotion:

• Illuminoctem, a movement-based work performed by Single Carrot Theatre December 17, 18, and 19 at 7:30 p.m. and December 20 at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $10-20. Illuminoctem is an original performance based on George McDonald’s short story The Day Boy and The Night Girl.

• Matsukaze (Wind in the Pines), a Japanese Noh Theatre piece re-envisioned by members of the Annex Theater. You can see the play at the LOF/T on December 17, 18, or 19 at 8 p.m. for $5-10. The performance is the second half of the venue swap between the Annex Theater and the LOF/T.