By Peter Thomas Ricci<\/p>\n
Lookingglass Theatre\u2019s production of \u201cMoby Dick\u201d \u2013 both in its 2016 world premiere and its 2017 re-staging \u2013 was among the most spectacular works of theater I have ever seen on a Chicago stage, so when I learned that ensemble member David Catlin (who wrote and directed the show) was preparing a new staging of Mary Shelley\u2019s classic novel Frankenstein<\/i>, I eagerly awaited Catlin\u2019s treatment on another work of classic American literature.<\/p>\n
And having seen the production, I can confidently state that Catlin has not lost his touch: Lookingglass\u2019 \u201cFrankenstein\u201d is every bit as daring and interdisciplinary as its \u201cMoby Dick,\u201d with elements of musical theater, ballet, and drama all merging into a wholly unique experience that vividly captures the themes of Shelley\u2019s novel, among them death, ambition, and frailty.<\/p>\n
The year is 1814, and Mary Wollstonecraft (Cordelia Dewdney) is traveling with her lover and future husband Percy Shelley (Walter Briggs), his rowdy, larger-than-life friend Lord Byron (Keith D. Gallagher), and their two friends John Polidori (Debo Balogun) and Claire Clairmont (Cruz Gonzalez-Cadel). As they drink and jest, Percy concludes telling a horror story, one that, we learn, is part of a competition proposed by Byron \u2013 who can write the best horror tale. Despite the overwhelming sexism of Percy and Byron, Mary begins sharing her story,\u00a0 <\/span>and thus, the story of Victor Frankenstein and his sad creation commences.<\/p>\n The key to Catlin\u2019s production lies in its multifaceted nature. No mere literary adaptation, Catlin has crafted a work that is as much about Mary Shelley as it is her novel \u2013 in other words, Catlin is just as interested in the conditions and experiences that created<\/i> the classic novel we all know, and those passions reverberate in every scene, with all the aforementioned actors changing costumes and taking on the roles of Victor, the Creature, and others. And as previously mentioned, Catlin is not content with ordinary drama or ordinary staging: the stage opens in unexpected ways; actors walk amongst and behind the audience; various kinds of fabric are raised to surround and obscure the stage; and various kinds of music are utilized, from Gonzalez-Cadel\u2019s haunting singing to a disturbing barrage of heavy metal sounds at the Creature\u2019s birth (huge shoutout to Rick Sims for that).<\/p>\n And that\u2019s the note I should end upon: the severity of these themes, and the way that Catlin\u2019s direction \u2013 alongside the superlative work of his cast and crew (Sully Ratke\u2019s costume design deserves special mention) \u2013 does not compromise on them. While Mary and Percy may have been in love, their romance was similarly defined by infidelities and broken promises; Mary would give birth to five children, but only one would survive; and while Victor Frankenstein accomplishes the miracle of reanimating dead tissue, he then abandons his bloody, horrifying Creature, leaving the blood-soaked creation to wander the streets of Bavaria to endless beatings and abuse. Frankenstein<\/i> is not a monster story; rather, it is a metaphorical treatise on life, fertility, and human ambition, and as he did with Moby Dick<\/i>, Catlin has beautifully brought those themes to the stage.<\/p>\n Highly Recommended<\/b><\/p>\n Playing at Lookingglass Theater at Water Tower Water Works, 821 N. Michigan Avenue, through August 4.<\/b><\/p>\n Tickets are available at lookingglasstheatre.org or 312-337-0665.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Peter Thomas Ricci Lookingglass Theatre\u2019s production of \u201cMoby Dick\u201d \u2013 both in its 2016 world premiere and its 2017 re-staging \u2013 was among the most spectacular works of theater […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":35460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,41,245,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music-news","category-features","category-musical-theatre","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}