Leo Milmet, along with the PVS junior and senior classes, traveled to Pasadena’s A Noise Within Theatre last month to view the theatre group’s production of Frankenstein. Mary Shelley’s thriller is a staple of English literature. The AP Lit class had just finished reading the book over the summer. Leo, an avid fan of theatre and cinema, submitted this review of the production. His theatrical review is a timely fit, as this week blog celebrates art.
PRODUCTION GRADE: B-
By Guest Writer Leo Milmet
A Noise Within’s production of Frankenstein by Nick Dear was as interesting as it was imperfect. What do I mean by that? The first few moments with the Creature, crawling like a babe, not knowing who or what he is or why he’s been created, are perhaps the best moments in the show. Michael Manuel, the actor playing the Creature shrivels, shudders, shouts, grunts, and mesmerizes his way into the audience’s heads and hearts. He’s fascinating, and the show is worth the price of admission for him alone. He makes us feel so much sympathy for a character who has been totally dehumanized by his portrayal in popular culture.
Next to enter the stage, of course, is Victor Frankenstein himself. Now, the actor playing Victor is somewhat of an enigma to me. My main question is, “How could a director good enough to direct Manuel’s performance also be bad enough to direct this one?” Seriously. This actor gives a performance whose over-the-topness would be surprising in a high-school play, let alone a professional one. He plays Frankenstein like we are meant to laugh at his terrible portrayal. I haven’t seen him in anything else, but his portrayal of Victor Frankenstein may be the greatest work of comedy he’s ever done. He bands together with a few truly awful members of a mostly-decent ensemble to ALMOST offset all of the goodwill we’ve gotten from Manuel. What is this actor’s name? Kasey Mahaffy. I understand that it is very hard to recite the line “NOOOOOOOOOOO!!” like it’s well-written, but it can be done so much better.
Mercifully, the first 30 minutes or so involve very few moments of Mahaffy’s ridiculous performance. Rather, we first see life through the eyes of the first and only member of a species, and it’s heartbreaking. He’s treated about as well as we would treat a rattlesnake on our kitchen table, and it’s sad. The mirror it holds up to society is interesting, and someone was onto something wonderful when he or she decided to populate the stage with mirrors.
As the show continues, it becomes more and more eventful, and the story is fascinating all along; its tone is always of dread; the intent is never to frighten but to create empathy for pretty much everyone, which is very smart because I, for one, find it easy to pity such a lost soul as the Creature. And, if it weren’t for Mahaffy, the play would have succeeded in creating empathy for the major characters, despite some shortcomings in the ensemble department.
The ensemble is okay at best; the dialogue could use a brush-up; Kasey Mahaffy as Victor Frankenstein is utterly ridiculous. Still, the story’s technical design and especially the brilliantly-characterized performance of Michael Manuel caused me to have a great time watching the play–despite its shortcomings.
*The views of guest writer Milmet are uniquely his own and do not represent the opinions and views of thebirdonfire.org.
Art Editor: Chelsea
