FRANKENSTEIN AT THE ARTS

Frankenstein is frankly terrifying. After all these years filled with monsters from Boris Kharkov through to Benedict Cumberbach you’d honestly think we would be inured to the shock value . But no. And from Row B I was more or less eyeball to rolling eyeball with the horrific creation when after a lightning strike so realistic we trembled in our seats, the monster groaned into gruesome life. Seán Aydon’s production took the tale to its limits . He started with that time honoured and so very effective the framing technique.

The play opens as a solitary woman ( a brilliantly convincing Basienka Blake) in a desperately cold cabin hears with terror, an omninous knock at the door. Out in this remote fastness and armed with a modern looking Luger, we get the distinct idea this is wartime in Russia. Who should it be but Dr. Frankenstein - and no, it’s not remotely funny , the visitor chills the nerves raw. Beautifully played by Eleanor LcLoughlin, this Frankenstein is an articulate, sensitive woman scientist. in pursuit of her malformed creation, the result of the experimentation she bitterly regrets ( with horrifically good reason)

Already the switch to a feminine role for the sincere civilised but deeply ambitious scientist creates a new kind of Dr. Frankenstein, a world away from cliché of the wild mad laboratory- bound experimenter of popular version. It takes some time to realise this Frankenstein is just as self centred, as her forebears But in the. hands of McLoughlin she emerges as an utterly believable idealist - who nevertheless makes her work second to all other concerns.

It has to be said the first half is horribly realistic with an inspired role from Annette Hannah. as Francine the faithful assistant - when her loyalties change later in the play, we know the project is cursed. But this creation and awakening of the ‘ monster’ is almost too overhwelming ( for me anyway) , The second half picks up the pace with Frankenstein’s life now populated with a would-be husband . a cheerful and welcome Dale Mathurin, and a sister the adorable Elizabeth who swings in with 1920s joie de vivre. In fact Lula Marsh as the lovely Elizabeth and the loyal lover Henry make.for a healthy breeze of normality, which makes the coming horrors even worse.

But the bold move in the play is the person of ‘the creature’. Seasoned actor Cameron Robertson gives an outstanding and uniquely nuanced performance . He is both repellent and endearing, ignorant and educated. It is he who embodies the moral outrage of the scientific experiment.

With its resonance of the Nazi death camps, this performance and its extraordinary actors make a memorable provocative piece from an old story and even more ancient myth into a sober contemplation of what our ambition as humans has and might still lead to.