It is rare in student drama to find a production which updates a classic text which such coherence and profundity as Fred Wienand’s 5th week production of Frankenstein promises to do. After deciding to stage Nick Dear’s 2011 adaptation of the novel, Wienand was convinced he could go further still, and proceeded to update the text beyond Dear’s version, staging it in a counterfactual reality in 1929. The First World War continued for another eleven years, eventually ending in a stalemate that left Europe a wasteland of broken-down political structures and thousands of displaced refugees. It is out of such a landscape that both Wienand’s brainchild and Frankenstein’s monster were born.
When I met with Wienand and producer/assistant director Megan Thresh, their enthusiasm for the upcoming production was palpable. They spoke passionately and convincingly about how their re-imagining of Shelley’s classic not only spoke to the original novel, but to a contemporary audience in a world increasingly tainted by masses of misplaced refugees and a pervasive fear of ‘the other’. Their production even nods to a post-war society feminized by thousands of deaths of male soldiers, and appropriate amendments have been made to portray Frankenstein as a product of a newly matriarchal society. Without wanting to give too much away, every aspect of their update has been given deep consideration in relation to the original novel; as Wienand himself put it: ‘There’s no point changing something if the text doesn’t respond to it’.
The rehearsals I witnessed in the week before the production suggested the cast is as strong as the concept. Tom Curzon and Seamus Lavan play Victor Frankenstein and the creature respectively. Curzon promises to deliver a compelling performance that embodies the post-war disillusionment underpinning the production. Lavan, as the creature, conveys the immense physical dedication involved in such a role: with no costume, make up or speech he transformed himself remarkably into a contorting, non-human beast. Such attention has been paid to the creature’s physicality that a dedicated choreographer has been hired to choreograph his movements. However, this won’t be the only impressive thing about Lavan’s performance: the directors were keen to assure me that an emphasis has been placed on the creature’s interiority and character development, in order to explore ideas of empathy and consciousness in non-human creatures. I also witnessed brief but commendable performances by Rosa Garland and Alice Boyd as Madam and William Frankenstein, suggesting that the characters surrounding Frankenstein and the creature will be anything but peripheral.
Wienand comes across as an engaging director, and one that his cast seem enthusiastic about working with. Whilst I was only privy to a brief snapshot of a rehearsal in Christ Church JCR, it is clear that the cast are fully behind Wienand and his innovative concept. So they should be; if it lives up to expectations this should be a brilliant production, and certainly one not worth missing.
