Young Frankenstein
Mary Shelley was onto something when she penned the sci-fi and horror-inspiring novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus – namely arrogant men messing with stuff they shouldn’t, stuffing things up for everyone else. That, and we can’t get enough of a poor, persecuted emo ‘monster’ who just wants to be loved. Her genius has sparked life into a bazillion adaptations since then. Universal Pictures produced eight films, beginning with James Whale’s Frankenstein, followed swiftly by Bride of Frankenstein. Hammer bashed out seven. Andy Warhol and Paul Morrisey made a horny one. There have been straight plays, operas, songs and side quests, like Penny Dreadful, Poor Things or The Bride!But of all the skewwhiff looks at the source material, re-stitching its decomposing fleshy parts into something else entirely, multi-hyphenate funny man and The Producers mastermind Mel Brooks’ hilarious Young Frankenstein is one of the most genuinely inventive.
An outrageous spoof, co-written with Willy Wonka’s Gene Wilder, Young Frankenstein was so good they made it twice. With the help of book co-writer Thomas Meehan, Brooks adapted his own adaptation into the Tony-nominated 2007 musical that’s currently playing at St Kilda’s Theatre Works.
It’s aliiiiiiivvvvveeeee? Who’s involved?
This riotous new staging, presented near-deliriously by StageBugs Productions, is directed with the madcap energy by Christian Cavallo (Footloose). He casts a game Josh Direen as the preening and puffed-up Dr...