Frankenstein, Shakespeare Theatre Company

 There's a joke that's circulated the internet for many years, in three parts:

Frankenstein is the monster

Frankenstein is not the monster

Frankenstein IS the monster

It's been many years since I read Mary Shelley's novel, but I remember the continual surprise of who these characters were divorced from the accumulated 200+ years of cultural baggage. The creature was constructed to be beautiful, not hideous and bedecked with neck-bolts from Hollywood, and he spoke eloquently and passionately to his creator. Victor Frankenstein was more than just the mad scientist in the lab, playing with lightning, he was... the worst kind of grad student, the most irresponsible creator, the... well, the Worst. 

Nick Westrate and Rebecca S'manga Frank in Frankenstein at Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo by DJ Corey Photography.

In Emily Burns's adaptation of Frankenstein, the story's center is shifted away from the creature and the frightening work of the lab, and into the Frankenstein home itself and its anchor, Elizabeth (Rebecca S'manga Frank), here an orphan taken in by the family and soon the wife of Victor (Nick Westrate). Burns, who also directs here, uses sharp and modern dialogue to very quickly paint a portrait of the strained relationship between the two characters. If the central agony of Shelley's Creature was his abandonment by his creator and his isolation in a world of humans who cannot accept him, the tension of Burns's play lies in exploring the same themes of isolation and estrangement on all the central relationships surrounding Frankenstein that began to brew decades before Victor ever left for school in Ingolstadt.

As Elizabeth, Frank anchors the evening with compassion and authority, and is given the chance to exist not just within the confines of Shelley's story, but in an expanded narrative that travels back to her childhood and a life that extends beyond her literary original. Nick Westrate's Victor has a difficult task in remaining appealing even as he systematically lies to those around him about his discoveries and actions while away from home, and Westrate handles this deftly even as the tightrope narrows and narrows. By having Victor conceal the most fantastical details of his journeys, Burns's adaption takes the question of what a creator owes to its creation and narrows it into what a parent owes a child, a partner owes their counterpart, and how we draw the lines of family itself beyond blood alone. In less accomplished hands, it wouldn't have worked, but Burns creates a powerful theatrical story engine that welcomes familiarity with the original but produces something new and engaging on stage.