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[title]Mary Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein is a genius obsessively driven to uncover the secrets of life. That passion pushes him to create the monster who will destroy everything the scientist holds dear; by the novel’s end, Frankenstein is as much of a beast as his creation. In the titular role, a wooden Ed Krystosek doesn’t reach his character’s extreme highs and lows. Like that performance, Terry McCabe’s production, with its sluggish pace and stiff acting, could use a few jolts of electricity.
Bo List’s 2011 adaptation condenses Shelley’s text into a tight, tense narrative, but McCabe’s languid direction never captures the story’s sense of horror or fear. When the scientist recounts a terrifying nightmare, he might as well be reading a grocery list. Frankenstein’s Creature (Mark Pracht) gets a rageful introduction, then loses the primal quality that makes him a threat. Once the Creature starts reading Paradise Lost and the Bible, his quest for vengeance takes a backseat to philosophical concerns. The diminished fury makes the Creature’s murderous actions in Act II difficult to believe. And with drag makeup, baggy clothes and contemporary leather boots, the Creature looks more hobo than horrific, sticking out among the otherwise period-appropriate costume designs.
As Frankenstein’s fiancée and childhood friend, respectively, Jennifer T. Grubb and Catherine Gillespie give lively performances. Their emphatic love for Victor lends the production its heart, but one that beats too briefly.