Frankenstein's Creature

A radical new retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein comes to the London stage this week — and very reasonably priced tickets might still be had if you are in the vicinity.

Running August 25 to 29, Frankenstein’s Creature is a one-man play written and performed by James Swanton who has garnered consistently high praise for his work, notably his recent West End success in Sykes and Nancy. Mr. Swanton is no stranger to extraordinary characters of genre fiction having played the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Marley’s Ghost.

Frankenstein’s Creature promises to be an intense experience as the story is told entirely from The Creature’s perspective. “With no name and no past,” reads the press release, “he must forge a place in a world that does not want him. He must find his voice.”  

The image of Swanton as The Creature shows him biting into an apple, the new Adam cast out of paradise.

Frankenstein’s Creature is directed by Jack Gamble with designs by Zoe Koperski. It is produced by Jack Gamble and Quentin Beroud for Dippermouth and mounted at Theater503 on Battersea Park Road, London.

We’ll be on the lookout for reviews and future productions.

Frankenstein’s Creature on Theatre503 page.

Frankenstein’s Creature on Facebook.

All Girl Frankenstein

The stage has been an essential medium in the cultural life of Frankenstein. When Mary Shelley’s book was published in 1818, its modest run of 500 copies quickly sold out and the title fell out of print. It might have been forgotten or perhaps remembered as a gothic curio if not for playwright Richard Brinsley Peake. His fanciful adaptation of 1823, Presumption, or: The Fate of Frankenstein, was such a sensation that William Godwin, Mary’s father, arranged for a new edition of the novel, reviving its literary career. The play itself spawned countless knock-offs that would keep multiplying through the years, new adaptations generally inspired by other theatrical versions instead of the original book. When James Whale made the classic FRANKENSTEIN in 1931, the film was based on yet another play, Peggy Webling’s Frankenstein: An Adventure into the Macabre.

To this day, some version or another of Frankenstein — pro, amateur, straight, comedic or musical — is being staged somewhere every week, and the story’s exceptionally compelling themes are often explored by experimental ensembles, as with this recent version by Bob Fisher and The Chicago Mammals. All Girl Frankenstein premiered in October 2013. In January this year, the group performed a special version called Three Girl Frankenstein in which three actresses played all the parts.

All Girl Frankenstein is one of a series of plays where Chicago actresses get to play parts traditionally cast with men. The group staged All Girl Moby Dick in 2012 and All Girl Edgar Allen Poe is being prepared for October 2014.

The Chicago Mammals blog carries bios of all the participants. Pictured in this post, at the top, is Erin Meyers as Victor Frankenstein. Pictured above are Amy E. Harmon as The Creature and Erin Orr as Henry Clerval. Another Mammals regular, Liz Chase, played a creepy lab assistant who sets up the play in a prologue. Completing the circle, the assistant character serving as narrator is a theatrical invention originated by Peake all the way back in 1823.

Reviews of All Girl Frankenstein in The Chicago Tribune and Chicago Theater Beat.

Related:

Inflatable Frankenstein

500 Clown Frankenstein

Mortal Toys

Clive Barker’s Frankenstein in Love

Inflatable Frankenstein

If you’re in the New York area, you might want to head for the The Kitchen on 19^th Street and catch Radiohole’s world premiere performances of Inflatable Frankenstein. Eric Dyer and his co-conspirators have created a unique theatrical event inspired by the life of Mary Shelley, her Frankenstein, the films of James Whale and their countless sequels, with a bit of Antonin Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty and lots of inflated plastic grocery bags thrown in.

Inflatable Frankenstein, we are told, is about the act of creation and the Meaning of Frankenstein as a metaphor for everything. I might add that it demonstrates, yet again, how Frankenstein is infinitely malleable, interpretable, and a springboard for wild creativity. Critics approve. The New York Times’ Ben Brantley writes, “Yuck, what a mess. What a sticky, goopy, embarrassing, all-over-the-place and absolutely necessary mess.”

Hurry up and see Inflatable Frankenstein, playing now as part of the COIL Festival until January 19. Tickets are only $20! It will also unfold on March 22 at EMPAC in Troy, NY.

The Kitchen’s page for Inflatable Frankenstein.

EMPAC's page, with slide show, for Inflatable Frankenstein

Performance Space 122 has a suitably disconcerting video teaser for Inflatable Frankenstein.

Eric Dyer discusses Radiohole’s scenic approach on Culturebot.
The Radiohole website.

The New York Times review, with slide show.

Related:
A Frankenstein Mashup featuring Larry Fessenden’s superb montage of Frankenstein clips. 

Frankenstein en français

Playwright Nick Dear’s adaptation of Frankenstein, made into the hit play of 2011 by director Danny Boyle for Britain’s National Theater, is being adapted to French for the Québécois theater.

Translated by Maryse Warda, Frankenstein is to be mounted for the 2013 season in two of Québec’s most prestigious theatres. It will premiere at Québec City’s Théâtre du Trident on January 15, 2013, and later move to Montréal’s Théâtre Denise-Pelletier. As with the original British version, it is planned for the two lead actors to play both parts, appearing as Victor Frankenstein or The Creature on alternate evenings.

Bringing Dear’s Frankenstein to the French stage is a project nurtured by director Jean Leclerc. As an actor, Leclerc enjoyed an international career, with several American television credits. One of his most prominent roles stateside came in 1978 following Frank Langella and Raul Julia as Broadway’s Dracula, in a famous production designed by Edward Gorey.

The pre-production poster seen here was photographed by Hélène Bouffard and Stéphane Bourgeois for Dièse Design. 

National Theater Frankenstein Encores

The UK’s National Theater has released a new trailer announcing encore screenings of its triumphant 2011 production of Frankenstein, written by Nick Dear and directed by Danny Boyle.

Despite universal acclaim, a stack of important awards and petitions by fans, the National has no plans to produce a DVD of the play, theater being, by definition, an ephemeral experience. Not to mention complex issues of performance rights. Still, this remarkable Frankenstein will be coming ‘round again this summer in a “limited season” of screenings through the NT Live circuit of movie houses around the world.

If you’ve seen this production, I suspect you might want to see it again, as I will. If you haven’t seen it, I urge you to do so. It’s as perfect a production of Frankenstein as anyone can hope for, brilliantly acted by Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, switching parts on alternate evenings as Victor Frankenstein and his Creature. There are many moments that have stuck indelibly with me, from the athletics of the creation scene under a canopy of over 3000 light bulbs, through the scenes with the blind DeLacey, Frankenstein haunted by little William’s ghost, the Creature’s harrowing encounter with Elizabeth, and a profoundly moving arctic finale. Best of all was a brief, poignant sequence where the Creature dances with his dream Bride.

Frankenstein will be screening this summer, beginning in June. The National Theatre’s Frankenstein page has a link to its NT Live venues. Whether all the venues listed will carry the encore performances is not specified. You might want to check with your local theater.

Related:
The National Theatre’s Frankenstein
The Reviews are In
Frankenstein Goes Global

Broadway's Infamous Frankenstein of 1981

Here’s Gilbert Lesser’s classic poster for the infamous 1981 Broadway production of Frankenstein, a show that opened and closed on the same day.

Written by Victor Gialanella, this adaptation first played to good reviews at the Repertory Theatre of St.Louis, in March and April of 1979. Translating to Broadway, the play acquired an extravagant budget and massive, state of the art sets, including a towering fuse-blower lab for the creation scene. The usual number of stagehands was tripled to 35 just to handle the set pieces rotating into view on a giant turntable or swinging in from the rafters. The show’s opening, set for December 1980, was bumped twice, first to allow fine-tuning of the complex special effects, and again when lead actor William Converse-Roberts, as Victor Frankenstein, was replaced by David Dukes. Other cast members included Dianne Wiest as Elizabeth and Keith Jochim, brought over from the St.Louis version, as The Creature. In an inspired bit of casting, the formidable John Carradine appeared as the Blind Hermit. Forty-five years earlier, he had played a bit part as a hunter who stumbled into the Blind Hermit’s cabin and beheld Karloff’s Monster in Bride of Frankenstein.

Problems multiplied and costs soared through rehearsals and over a run of 29 previews. When it finally premiered at The Palace on Sunday, January 4, 1981, the unanimously dire reviews dealt this Frankenstein the final blow.

The New York Times’ Frank Rich was suitably impressed by the spectacular effects, the overwhelming sets and director Tom Moore’s “sure pictorial sense”, but noted that actors “hardly register against all the smoke and fog.” The narrative, Rich opined, was “plodding”, “stilted” and “lead-footed”, merging scenes from James Whale’s 1931 film and Mary Shelley’s novel into “a talky, stilted mishmash that fails to capture either the gripping tone of the book or the humorous pleasure of the film.” Jochim’s Monster “learns to talk - and once he does, he refuses to shut up… Though elaborately made up with the requisite cranial fissures, Mr. Jochim lacks a commanding physical or vocal presence. He's just a beery lout in a Halloween costume.” Also singled out for criticism was the “B-movie musical score” with spooky organ riffs, “thrown on top of the show's other noise to announce the desired emotional effect of each scene.”

In the end, Rich noted, “We feel nothing except the disappointment that comes from witnessing an evening of misspent energy. ''Frankenstein'' may be the last word in contemporary theatrical technology, but its modern inventions are nothing without the alchemy of plain, old-fashioned drama.”

Frankenstein was shuttered by dawn. Over the next 48 hours, desperate attempts were made to save the show. Cast members volunteered for pay cuts and creators waived their royalties. One plan called for investors to pony up an additional $400,000 for retooling and television commercials, but at two million and counting — four times the initial budget — Frankenstein was already the costliest of all Broadway failures, earning a permanent spot on top ten flop lists. On Wednesday, January 7, the show was officially cancelled.

Gilbert Lesser’s poster fared better. No sooner was it printed that it was snapped up by the Museum of Modern Art. "The show's folding notice wasn't even up yet,” Lesser recalled, “when the museum called to tell me the poster had been chosen for its permanent collection. It's the highest of honors."

Lesser (1935-19990) was a pure designer, working with geometrical shapes and typography to achieve rigorously sparse and stunning images. His theatrical contributions included a now famous poster for Equus using flat shapes like puzzle pieces for an image evoking Picasso’s Guernica. Lesser’s poster for The Elephant Man used the pictogram for ‘man’, skewing its limbs and replacing the dot on top with a large circle, suggesting the character’s misshapen head. For Frankenstein, Lesser took the original St.Louis poster — a monster’s white hand against a black background — to another level, using torn paper to assemble the jigsaw hand. Lesser was of a school of stark design with Saul Bass, and his Frankenstein poster recalls Bass’ posters and title sequences for Anatomy of a Murder (1959) and Bunny Lake is Missing (1965).

Victor Gialanella’s Frankenstein, in its original, pre-Broadway version, continues to be staged to this day. To be fair, the infamous Broadway version had been heavily rewritten. The author would go on to a brilliant career in television, earning two Daytime Emmy Awards for his work on Guiding Light and Days of Our Lives.

An appreciation of Gilbert Lesser, from The Baltimore Sun.

Frank Rich’s New York Times Review of Frankenstein (1981).

How Broadway’s Frankenstein “nearly came back to life”.

T.P.Cooke in Paris, in which the actor is stricken by gout, arrested by gendarmes, and paints himself green. Or is it blue?

The Monster appears! Yet another image from the blockbusting 1826 Paris run of Le Monstre et le magicien, again showing The Monster confronting its maker.

Béraud and Merle’s Le Monstre borrowed heavily from Richard Brinsley Peake’s Presumption, or The Fate of Frankenstein of 1823 — they even hired the original play’s Monster, actor T.P.Cooke. The Monster’s first appearance, as evidenced by the numerous illustrations it inspired, was the highlight of both plays. In a blast of smoke, lit by colored lights, The Monster bursts out of the laboratory. Frankenstein — Zametti, in the French version — pulls a sword. The Monster grabs it away and snaps it in two. In the original London play, The Monster then ran to a large window and leaped to freedom. In the French version, The Monster breaks the sword, throws it down and vanishes on the spot, dropping out of sight by means of a trap door. Cooke was familiar with the perilous device, having used one repeatedly to extraordinary effect as Polidori’s Lord Ruthven, The Vampire, in 1820. Cooke’s trap door, which came to be known as a “vampire trap”, used rubber doors and sandbags as counterweight, innovating on an old stage trick.

In a case of reverse influence, the French Le Monstre et le magicien would, in turn, transform Presumption when author Peake adopted Le Monstre’s stirring conclusion aboard a storm-tossed schooner, replacing the original avalanche ending. Both plays would influence new adaptations while still competing against each other for years to come. T.P.Cooke, crossing effortlessly from one play to the other, would, in time, rack up 365 performances as The Monster. Back in 1826, his Parisian sojourn would prove to be quite an adventure…

Upon his arrival, Cooke was stricken with gout, a painful affliction he blamed on the acidity of French wines. Laid up at his hotel, his foot wrapped in flannel, Cooke was unable to attend rehearsals but he rallied quickly and, relying on his familiarity with the part, he was able to make his June 10 premiere. Le Monstre was a phenomenal success, with police called out to handle the crush of sell-out crowds. On July 15, the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin touted its triumph and spoofed its competitors with a vaudeville revue called Les Filets de Vulcain, ou le lendemain d’un succès (Vulcan’s Nets, or The Day After a Success). Cooke participated, speaking heavily accented French and sans makeup, in a sketch called Le Monstre.

Cooke was the toast of Paris yet, having vanquished the gout, another incident threatened his continued participation in the season's hit play...

In August 1867, an unsigned article in the “Parisian Sketches” section of The People’s Magazine, An Illustrated Miscellany For All Classes, published in London by The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge — whose ministrations apparently did not extend to them foreigners — related an anecdote about “the well-known and highly respected Mr. T.P.Cooke” having played The Monster at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin, “about as ugly a building as can be imagined”. According to the article, “a misunderstanding arose between (Mr. Cooke) and the manager, in consequence of some unfair advantage the latter wished to take.” The problem went unresolved until Cooke was forced to action. One morning, he sent word that he would not be appearing onstage that evening, whereupon the manager had Cooke picked up by gendarmes and marched to the theater “almost as a prisoner”. Cooke remained adamant and, ultimately “fearing a disturbance among the audience”, the manager gave way and the performance went on as planned. The incident, according to the chauvinistic People’s Magazine, was “a circumstance… which not only showed the despotic power the French police can exercise in theatrical affairs, but brought to light the determined character of our countryman as well.”

A final controversy of sorts has to do with the likely-never-to-be-resolved question of The Monster’s exact color. In The Recollections and Reflections of J.R.Planché (London, 1872), the playwright of The Vampire visited his friend Cooke in Paris, noting, “his success was so great that “monstre bleu”, the color he painted himself, became the fashion of the day in Paris.”

Otherwise, in Sinnett’s Picture of Paris, published in London, 1845, the author’s description of the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin singles out Le Monstre, writing, “In the year 1826… Mr. T.P.Cooke was received in the most flattering manner, and became quite the fashion of the day. His performance of the Monster in Frankenstein for eighty consecutive nights saved the theatre from bankruptcy, replenished its treasury, and for several weeks everything in Paris was pale green à la Monstre.”

Monstre vert or Monstre bleu? Either way, T.P.Cooke’s Parisian adventure was a colorful affair.

The Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin website.

The National Library of France Digitial Library site, Gallica.

Related:
The Monster of La Porte Saint-Martin

The Frankenstein of 1826, in Color

The First Monster: T.P.Cooke

Mary Shelley Meets Frankenstein

The Monster of La Porte Saint-Martin

"It is he! Oh, despair!” exclaims Zametti, the Frankenstein character, in another color lithograph from Le Monstre et le magicien, staged at Paris’ Porte Saint-Martin theater in June 1826.

Zametti, played by Ménier, is an alchemist who, in the end, perishes at sea at The Monster’s hands. The part is often attributed — erroneously — to Paulin Ménier, Ménier’s son, born 1822, who would become an actor of considerable repute. Likewise, the illustration above is by Feillet, a prominent lithographer and teacher whose work is often confused with that of his daughter, Hélène, herself a prolific artist.

In a closeup look at Feillet’s illustration, T.P.Cooke’s Monster shows a darker green color to the face down to the jawline and streaks of red greasepaint at the mouth and eyes.

The Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin, still operating today, is one of the most storied theaters in the world. Taking its name from the nearby triumphal arch, the original building was commissioned as an opera house by Queen Marie Antoinette in 1781. Incredibly, the building was erected in only two months — from the first stone laid on August 26 to its inauguration on October 26 — benefiting from money-is-no-object royal support. Twelve years on, a new Opera went up and the Porte Saint-Martin was transformed into a playhouse. The original building was destroyed by fire in the violent Spring of the Paris Commune in 1871. It was rebuilt and reopened as an 1100 seat theater in 1873.

In years to come, authors such as Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo presented their plays here, drawing in the most famous and accomplished actors and directors of the Continent. Edmond Rostand premiered his Cyrano de Bergerac in 1897, and Roman Polanski directed Master Class a hundred years later. Sarah Bernhardt appeared as Theodora in 1882, and Marcel Marceau triumphed in the Sixties. Today, la Porte Saint-Martin continues to boldly mix the classics and experimental theater, the two extremes coming together in the current offering, a contemporary version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Le Monstre et le magicien of 1826 was an early hit at the original Porte Saint-Martin, by far the most popular and lucrative play of its season, running 80 sold-out nights to often boisterous crowds.

More images from Le Monstre et le magicien coming up this week!

The Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin website.

The National Library of France Digitial Library site, Gallica.

Related:
T.P.Cooke in Paris
The Frankenstein of 1826, in Color
The First Monster: T.P.Cooke
Mary Shelley Meets Frankenstein

The Frankenstein of 1826, in Color!

A lithograph from an 1826 Paris performance reveals actor T.P.Cooke as Frankenstein's Monster, in color!

Cooke originated the role in London, July 1823, in Richard Brinsley Peake’s Presumption, or The Fate of Frankenstein, to phenomenal success. Within weeks, five different copycat plays sprang up, all featuring monsters based on Cooke’s interpretation. Mary Shelley herself, attending a performance on August 28, came away delighted with the play and Cooke’s performance.

Dressed in a short tunic, wrapped in a loose cloak, barefoot, fright-wigged and sporting a blue-green complexion, Cooke would be the inspiration, the template, the model for all the theatrical Frankenstein Monsters for nearly a century, just as Boris Karloff’s blockhead and bolts version has been an icon and a reference over the last 80 years.

A measure of his notoriety, Cooke, though hobbled by gout, was called to Paris in 1826 for Le Monstre et le magicien, a new play inspired not by Mary Shelley’s novel but by Peake’s play, as were all of the Frankenstein plays — more than a dozen by now — staged in England, all over Europe and in America. Save for the basic theme of an artificial man and the dire consequences for his presumptive creator, very little of Shelley’s work remained. The Monster and the Magician’s authors, Antony Beraud and Jean-Toussaint Merle, even did away with the Frankenstein name. Here, the creator was called Zametti.

In a scene lifted intact from the Peake play, The Monster, brought to life offstage, bursts out of the mezzanine laboratory in a cloud of smoke. He crashes through a balustrade and drops to the stage, confronting Frankenstein, snatching away his sword and snapping it in two. The same scene was first illustrated in 1823 (posted here), showing Cooke in a signature heroic pose. The scene was also used to illustrate Peake’s book of the play (posted here), with The Monster appearing as a baby-faced giant. In the 1826 illustration above, for the first time, Cooke appears in makeup, with full-body blue-green paint, red mouth and red highlights across the eyebrows.

The Monster’s color was variously described by contemporary critics as blue or green. One version of the play was called The Blue Demon. Cooke was such a sensation in Paris that his makeup color was replicated on gloves and dresses, with newspapers as far away as New Zealand reporting that the season’s fashionable color was vert de monstre — Monster Green!

The art is by François LeVillain — not to be confused with a famous namesake who was a sculptor and medal engraver — a lithographer of renown who was at the peak of his powers in the 1820s. LeVillain’s spectacular illustration, by far the most dynamic representation of the creation scene, is filled with tension as Cooke’s Monster hovers like an Angel of Death over the Frankenstein character, Zametti, pulling his sword. Note the composition, with the flowing robe mirroring Zametti’s arching pose and feathered hat. Note the textured smoke, the beautifully rendered folds in The Monster’s costume, and the delicate, muted colors.

This remarkable illustration, unlike any other, reveals the original stage Monster’s true appearance.

The illustration is archived on the French National Library’s Digital Library site, Gallica. I'll be posting more images from the 1826 play over this coming week.

Related:
T.P.Cooke in Paris
The Monster of La Porte Saint-Martin
The First Monster: T.P.Cooke
Mary Shelley Meets Frankenstein

The Posters of Frankenstein : The Mechanical by Dave Plunkert

A superb poster by Dave Plunkert for The Mechanical, Michael McGuigan’s play that introduces Mary Shelley and her fictional Monster into the extraordinary true-life tale of The Turk, a chess-playing automaton that thrilled and bamboozled observers in Europe and North America from the late 1700s until its fiery destruction in the mid 1800s. 

The Turk’s dumbfounded opponents included kings and assorted Grand Dukes, as well as Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin. It inspired Edgar Poe into writing a famous essay. Inevitably, this turbaned automaton would be exposed as an elaborate hoax. McGuigan’s intriguing play recruits Frankenstein’s Monster as the Turks’ operator, hiding inside its magician’s cabinet pedestal.

Dave Plunkert is a prolific illustrator and fine artist working out of Baltimore where, as it happens, the original Turk was displayed in the 1820s and a copycat device, the Walker Chess-Player, was assembled. Plunkert’s brilliant Dadaist collages have attracted top magazines such as Time, Playboy, Esquire and Rolling Stone, and an A-list of clients that include MTV and Nike.

Plunkert’s poster of The Mechanical was created for the Baltimore Theatre Project and the Bond Street Theatre where the play premiered in 2009.

Dave Plunkert’s website, blog, and Print Store.

Related:The Mechanical: Frankenstein Meets The Turk