Mary Shelley’s Monsters Review: Dimmed by Daylight
A meta reimagining of the classic Frankenstein, Mary Shelley’s Monsters proves a muddled experiment in gothic theater.
Some scary stories are best told in the dark. That’s one lingering conclusion after seeing a midday matinee of Bob Bartlett‘s gothic horror play Mary Shelley’s Monsters, a moody, meta deconstruction of the author’s trailblazing novel Frankenstein, examining its text, the god complex of its namesake scientist, and, of course, the Monster he creates.
Directed by Alex Levy, the play is performed inside the historic chapel of centuries-old Congressional Cemetery, seemingly an ideal venue for a creepy vision of gods and monsters on a stormy night.
Congressional Cemetery as a venue contributed mightily to the foreboding atmosphere of Bartlett’s allegorical werewolf thriller Lýkos Ánthrōpos, also directed by Levy and performed last year outside among the crypts and tombstones.
That play I saw at night seated next to a grave in the otherwise deserted cemetery. The day of our Mary Shelley’s Monsters matinee, the cemetery was anything but deserted, modestly busy with Sunday strollers and dogs happily playing off-leash all over the grounds.
Even on a gray autumn afternoon, light shone into the chapel through stained glass windows above the pulpit and the peaked arch entryway — a lovely sight but not conducive to the play’s Gothic atmosphere.
Essentially, the house lights cannot be dimmed, which might matter less for a more conventionally structured work. But Bartlett’s adventurous mashup of Shelley’s text, his own lyrical lines, poetry by Mary’s husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, and text from other sources, including Mary’s journal, demands focus and in some moments darkness to feel immersed in the fantasy.
Passages meant to be told by candlelight are flooded with ambient light from above. An amusing interlude using doll versions of the movie Bride and Monster as puppets is spoiled by the daylight. And on multiple occasions during this particular performance, barking dogs (and owners) outside spoiled the sound indoors. Suspension of disbelief battled hard and lost.
The cast, for the most part, maintains the mood of the play. Katrina Clark most adroitly manages multiple roles, including as Mary Shelley and her feminist author mother Mary Wollstonecraft, alternately narrating the tale, performing plays within the play, fiercely orating poetry, and throwing in the occasional wink to the audience.
Through Clark’s insistent portrayal, the play’s conception of Mary Shelley as a genteel Goth girl who’s the true mad scientist, comes into view. Mary is the sinner who overreaches to wonder if the dead can return to life, who is mad to think she could create life like God, or like any man.
The horror born of her sin comes into view via the Creature, portrayed by Jon Beal. A hulking figure in a cable-knit sweater, Beal’s Creature is more philosophical than frightening, although the actor does inject a matter-of-fact menace into certain gestures and moments.
In one such moment, the Creature gruesomely catalogs the different corpses whose respective parts were used to create him, a monster “pieced together from the leavings of other men.” In perhaps the play’s tensest scene, the Creature plays alone with the baby of Victor and Elizabeth Frankenstein, an infant represented by a quite eerie-looking doll.
Those small touches of stagecraft go a long way, but not far enough to smooth out the bumpy transitions between Bartlett’s horror, the fictionalized history, and beats from the book.
There’s also the bumpy performance of JC Payne as Victor Frankenstein, a stiff reading that doesn’t convey fear or lunacy, or the horror of overreaching ego, but reserve — not exactly a cogent quality for Victor Frankenstein. In the light of day, the mad doctor doesn’t bring this monster to life.
Mary Shelley’s Monsters (★★☆☆☆) runs through Oct. 12 inside the Chapel at Historic Congressional Cemetery, 1801 E St. SE. Tickets are $35. Visit www.bob-bartlett.com.
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