At Pacific Theatre until November 2, 2019
Tickets from $20 at pacifictheatre.org or 604-731-5518
Posted October 21, 2019
Little could 18-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, travelling across Europe with her married lover Percy Bysshe Shelley and their friend Lord Byron, anticipate that the short story she conceived or began writing during that trip would endure across the centuries. It wasn’t until Percy’s wife Harriet committed suicide in December 1816 that Percy and Mary would marry – a short three weeks later. Two years later, in 1818, Mary’s novel – Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus – was published anonymously; the second edition (1823) credited Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley as the author. Percy would die by accidental drowning two years later at the age of twenty-nine. Mary would go on to publish novels until her death at fifty-three in 1851 but her most famous novel remains Frankenstein. Some scholars suggest that Mary Shelley was the originator of the thriller.
Those who are old enough – before TV – will remember the golden age of radio drama: families gathered around the bulky console radio listening to Lux Radio Theatre, Amos ‘n’ Andy and Corliss Archer on Sunday evenings after dinner. Who can ever forget the chilling intro to The Whistler: “I am the Whistler, and I know many things, for I walk by night. I know many strange tales, many secrets hidden in the hearts of men and women who have stepped into the shadows. I know the nameless terrors of which they dare not speak.”
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, more than a century earlier than The Whistler, continues to resonate and adaptations for stage and film abound. And now, Peter Church has adapted the novel for a staged audio drama complete with a cast of four under the direction of Chris Lam: Corina Akeson as Victor Frankenstein; Tariq Leslie as The Creature; Matthew Simmons and Diana Squires, the sound ‘team’. Squires also reads Dr. Frankenstein’s fiancée Elizabeth and Simmons reads a Scottish police officer.
Almost as interesting as the story are the sound effects – produced in full view – in this Wireless Wings Radio Ensemble Production, a guest presentation of Pacific Theatre. A wind machine, crinkled aluminum foil for a crackling fire, water sloshed in a tin tub for waves lapping and a ‘thunder sheet’ for an impending storm. Shut your eyes and you are in the world of Victor Frankenstein – in his laboratory, travelling into the frozen Arctic, being strangled by the monstrous hands of his creation.
Credit: Raymond Shum
Tariq Leslie has the perfect voice for The Creature: deep, rich and sonorous with just a whiff of LAMDA (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art) about him. He’s set up with two mics: one for The Creature’s interior monologue and another, with a slight reverb, for The Creature’s heavy, growly, speaking voice.
In a gender switch, Corinna Akeson is Victor Frankenstein, the experimenter with enough hubris to challenge the creative power of God. Akeson throws herself physically into the reading – gesticulating dramatically – while Leslie, at his own script stand facing Akeson – remains simply standing except for a couple of violent outbursts. Lighting design by Jonathan Kim is mainly from over the actors’ heads, throwing their lower bodies into shadows. However, the sound table, at which Simmons sits, is well lit so we can see how the sound effects are being made. That’s definitely part of the enjoyment.
Credit: Raymond Shum
The story, of course, is well known and in view of advances in medical science, ethical questions confront us all the time. If Dolly (the female sheep cloned from a somatic cell) is possible, how close is science to creating a living human being outside the female womb? Frankenstein’s Creature does not look so much like science fiction in the 21st century. Far from being a simple thriller, Frankenstein remains chillingly prophetic. And it raises issues of good and evil: chiefly, whether evil is learned, not inherent in the human psyche.
Peter Church, in this adaption for staged radio, has remained faithful to the novel and so it is long. It’s a workout for the performers and, were it not for The Creature’s harrowing tale, it would be tempting to let Leslie and Akeson’s voices lull us to sleep, perchance to dream of monsters and mad scientists.
With a lot of today’s theatrical innovation using high-tech technology, there’s something very comforting about low-tech: voices in the dark, sound effects made by found objects and a thrilling story of one man’s pride and the plight of his creation – born innocent, gentle and kind but who learns to be monstrous by aping the wicked, uncaring behaviour of humans.