Perth Theatre
Four stars
Playing God, as every
writer of speculative fiction will know, is something that goes with the
mind-expanding, parallel universe-mastering - or indeed mistressing -
territory. So it goes for Eilidh Loan’s myth-making Mary Shelley in Rona
Munro’s new adaptation of Shelley’s much reinvented gothic fantasia, in which
strung-out scientist Victor Frankenstein ends up on the receiving end of his own
life-giving creative force.
By putting Mary onstage at
the centre of things rather than a mere framing device, Munro has written
something that gets to the heart of the creative process itself. With only
hints of what’s going on in her own teenage life, Mary gives full vent to her
darkest imaginings, as she allows Michael Moreland’s loveless Monster to exact
deadly revenge on Ben Castle Gibb’s Frankenstein, raising the show’s body count
to Agatha Christie style proportions.
Only in the second act
does Mary let Michael Moreland’s flesh and blood Monster off the leash and
allow him some sense of self-destructive autonomy. Even here, alas, he is steeped
in a savage humanity not of his own making.
The result of this in
Patricia Benecke’s production, a collaboration between Perth Theatre, the
Belgrade, Coventry, Sell A Door and Matthew Townshend Productions, is a peeling
back of several layers of the psychological onion. Set among the Swiss-styled
balconies and hanging trees of Becky Minto’s set, it’s easy to recognise Munro
dissecting, re-drafting and knitting together her own monster just as Mary
does.
With a pencil handily
lodged inside her tied-up hair and sporting a full-length leather coat, Loan’s
Mary is a woman possessed with a thoroughly modern head-girl briskness while sporting
cyberpunk apparel. This is a long way from the late-night hammy horrors where
many of us first absorbed more sensationalist takes on Shelley’s yarn, and more
resembles a 1970s Marvel Comics styled reboot of the classics.
By the end, Mary may
have slain a few demons of her own, but as the lights go out, she has also
fallen prey to something far more dangerous. Now she’s had a whiff of the all-encompassing
addictive buzz of having made something immortal, she knows things will never
be the same again.
The Herald, September 11th 2019
ends
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