For almost two centuries now, the Frankenstein Monster has been the poster child for all those who fear Science Gone Awry. The creation of nuclear weapons, the hole in the ozone, the promise/threat of robotics, genetically modified foods, cloning — just name it and the image of Victor Frankenstein's wretched, murderous creature comes to mind. Are carbon-dioxide emissions from automobiles causing a dangerous global warming? In inventing the internal combustion engine, we've created — guess what? — a Frankenstein Monster. Is the development of space-based anti-missile systems more likely to lead humankind to a nuclear showdown? Then our space program is turning into — wouldn't you know it? — a Frankenstein Monster. Mary Shelley's novel may have been published in 1818, but in 2004, with so many scientists looking into the fabric of the cosmos and the codes of human identity, it seems more relevant than ever. Surely it's just a matter of time before the next experiment leads to an unpredicted, unwanted horror. Surely it's just moments before the Monster emerges, clumsy and vengeful, beyond its creator's control.And surely a contemporary play on the subject should address these issues in a contemporary way. But that, I'm sorry to say, isn't the case with Playing With Fire: After Frankenstein, Barbara Field's ultra-faithful retelling of Shelley's famous story. Field's play is literate and intelligent, and the Jobsite Theater production features excellent acting, but aside from some theatrical rearrangements of the narrative, this is straight Shelley with nothing new. And this absence makes a difference: as the minutes pass and it becomes clear that Field has nothing to say about her celebrated subject, a certain boredom sets in, a boredom exacerbated by a script drenched in sincerity and devoid of suspense. Anyway, who needs a ploddingly serious theatrical Frankenstein when the novel's still available in bookstores and libraries, and the famous film's sitting on the shelf at Blockbuster? This is a play that never justifies its own existence, that leaves us wondering why Field chose to write it at all.
The story it brings us — and that Shelley tells in the original — is about Swiss scientist Victor Frankenstein, who comes upon the secret of animating dead flesh. He constructs a somewhat human creature, shoots it full of electricity, and watches as a live, albeit hideous thing climbs off the operating table. Almost from the start, the creature is wretched, and its acquisition of language — with the help of Paradise Lost — only teaches it how better to express its misery. Eventually it demands that Frankenstein create for it a mate; and when the agonized scientist demurs, it takes its revenge by killing his bride/cousin Elizabeth. Frankenstein pursues the creature with the intention of killing it, and is eventually led to the "top of the world" — the North Pole. There the desperate creator makes one last attempt to put an end to an experiment gone horribly, fatally wrong.
The Field play begins at the end — with Frankenstein and the Monster squaring off at the North Pole — and then proceeds to show us, in flashbacks, how it got there. The North Pole sequences want to be philosophical: the Monster asks such existential questions as "Why did you make me?" and "Why am I hideous?" and the two characters debate each other with truly Kierkegaardian gravitas. The problem is, these discussions never really touch us where we live (I'm assuming that most theatergoers don't consider themselves physically and morally deformed), and the one theme that's still relevant, the danger of untrammeled science, is largely ignored. Further, the flashbacks concerning Frankenstein's romance with his cousin, Elizabeth, are presented with a phony innocence that might embarrass Louisa May Alcott. Add portentous but ultimately unconvincing exchanges between Frankenstein and one of his professors, and the result is a play that neither entertains nor informs. As you might have guessed by now, it's also not very frightening.
Still, the acting is first-rate. As the older Frankenstein, Shawn Paonessa is anguished and exhausted — anguished at the loss of his brother (also monsterbait) and his bride, and exhausted from chasing his detested creature over half the globe. As the young Frankenstein, Ryan McCarthy is ambitious and naive, precisely the sort of idealist who might do something terrible for some appealing reason. As the Monster at the North Pole, Michael C. McGreevy is suitably angry and pained, and as his much younger counterpart, Jason Vaughan Evans is creepily subhuman (in fact, only the gruesomely made-up Evans makes this play start to seem a "tale of horror"). Ron Sommer as Professor Krempe is depressed and a little sinister (and this is a character whose only function seems to be to give young Frankie someone to talk to), and as Frankie's beloved Elizabeth, Sarah McKenna is lovely and lyrical. John Lott's impressive set is framed by what looks like a rectangle of ice, and director David M. Jenkins has the fine idea of putting the present action in front of the frame, and the flashbacks within. Katrina Stevenson's period costumes are colorful and felicitous, and composer Kevin Spooner's sound is appropriately ominous. Finally, Chris Holcom deserves praise for his convincing "Creature Makeup."
But the only thing really intriguing about Playing With Fire: After Frankenstein is its title. One reads it and expects something playful, something modern, an up-to-date takeoff on the famous tale, a new translation. But what one gets is a deliberate, rather slow-moving tribute to Mary Shelley's original. Anything this old-fashioned is, of course, out of fashion. Anything this lacking in ideas can make no claim on our attention.
Like the poor Monster says: "Why did you make me?"
This article appears in Nov 3-9, 2004.