Monster
Luna Theater Company strives to find its niche in Philly through "intense and provocative work", according to Producing Artistic Director Gregory Scott Campbell. Neal Bell’s Monster, Luna’s season opener certainly fits the bill, but more than that, the company continues to excel at work that’s downright creepy. Well-chosen for the time of year, "Monster" is a thought-provoking Halloween treat for the grown-ups, who might enjoy some chills with their theater just now.
In his adaptation of Mary Shelley’s "Frankenstein", Bell tells of the family of young Victor (Dan Hodge) who suspects that his interest in the cat goes beyond a wish for a furry companion. Speculating at an early age about the "spark" of life, and what makes the spark go out, young Victor, to his mother’s chagrin, thinks he may find out beneath the skin of the family pet. Meanwhile, as he grows up alongside his lovely cousin, Elizabeth (Melissa Lynch), a torrid and poignant romance brews. Expelled from his college lab, Victor returns to set up shop in his parents’ basement for his most gruesome and ambitious experiment of all, with tragic and terrifying consequences.
Neal Bell’s play emphasizes a succession of chilly, grisly moments, but also gives respite with frequent lines of morbid yet captivating humor. Unsparing with the murders (and the re-animations), the script still sometimes seems caught in prolonged, taut and melancholy moments given slow, portentous treatment by Director Gregory Scott Campbell, who also ignites plenty of morbid eroticism. As the play ends in a literal fire-and-ice blaze of conflicting extremes, we’re left wondering who the monster really is.
A wild-eyed, stooped Dan Hodge stars as Victor Frankenstein, his pale, lanky hands pulsing across his co-stars with an apparent life of their own. John Lopes brings Frankenstein’s "Creature" to life in one of the play’s most startling and agonizing moments. He shambles on and off the stage (usually at the most inconvenient or threatening moments), evoking a complex flurry of fear, revulsion and painful pity. Christopher Bohan, Mary Lee Bednarek, Gene D’Allesandro and Lena Mucchetti succeed in a tight ensemble of dual roles. Mr. Bohan and Mr. D’Allesandro kick off the story as a sympathetic sea captain and his first mate who encounter a mysterious figure out on the ice. Later Mr. Bohan appears as Clerval, a young man longing for Frankenstein’s affection, and Mr. D’Allesandro delivers much of the play’s humor in the nonetheless affecting role of Frankenstein’s father. Mary Lee Bednarek plays Frankenstein’s bewildered mother as well as Justine, a sensual, uppity maid who meets more than one dreadful end. Lena Mucchetti plays the doomed and clever cat and later appears as Frankenstein’s young brother. Both cherubic and seductive as Elizabeth, Melissa Lynch spends a great deal of the play trembling violently under abundant blond curls.
Michael Consenza’s fight choreography dwells mostly on long, tortured headlocks. A nearly bare set design by Dan Soule, consisting of a large wooden chair and a ragged-edged section of wood floor, leaving most props and settings in the hands of the cast’s convincing mimes. Ryk Lewis’s sound design anchors many scenes with the warm, dour thudding of a heartbeat, underscoring the show’s life and death themes. Mr. Lewis laces other scenes with an eerie, wind-howling-over-the-unknown-creatures-of-the-moor sound perfectly fitting the original novel’s Gothic setting.
Luna Theatre Company’s "Monster" is running through November 2nd at the Walnut Street Theatre’s Studio on 3. For tickets or more information, call 866-811-4111 or visit www.lunatheater.org
