THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 28, 1996 TAG: 9610260039
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Theater Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, THEATER CRITIC
LENGTH: 65 lines
``PLAYING WITH Fire (After Frankenstein)'' begins with an offstage scream and a mass of smoke and fog.
What follows is an evening of fewer screams and more fog. Sadly, most of it takes place offstage.
Mary Shelley's classic novel, 183 years old and still going strong, gets an intellectualized examination in a new adaptation by Barbara Field that was originally written for Minneapolis' Guthrie Theater. Treading ultra-familiar territory, the play displays novelty only in its viewpoint. It forthrightly, and repeatedly, makes a claim that creators should be responsible for their creations.
Dr. Victor Frankenstein, it seems, has never thought that way. At stake here is the creation process itself - and a misguided attempt to control life and death.
Steven Harders, making his directorial debut as the fourth chief director of the Generic Theater, has guided a gifted cast in getting every ounce of nuance and drama from this rather simple script. Performed on a raked stage that is meant to suggest everything from the North Pole to a Swiss laboratory, it emerges as one of the Generic's more visual, and perfectly timed, outings. Most impressive is the intricate lighting designs of Hank Sparks.
Jay Lockamy, as the aged Dr. Frankenstein, has the bearing and demeanor of a classical actor, but the talkathon script limits him to what sounds more like an elocution lesson. Stan Baranowski brings both humanity and vulnerability to ``the creature,'' something that, in this version, one would hardly call a monster.
Creation and creator face off at the North Pole as scenes from their past flash forward like ghosts of Halloweens past.
Scott Rollins is the young Frankenstein. Sean O'Reilly, in flesh-colored tights for the creation scene, is a healthy-looking, youngish ``creature.'' Lesa Azimi is a lovely Frankenstein bride who, thanklessly, seems to exist only to be murdered. Frank McCaffery has the rather superfluous role of a scientific adviser.
In this version, the creature is a kind of Jiminy Cricket who is more a hornet than a cricket - always pushing about conscience and such. Along the way, the oversimplifications make us groan. The creature flatly says, ``Life has made me ugly,'' even though he had earlier realized that he is just ``a homoplastic junkyard.''
When the creature asks that ``you talk to me, man to man,'' his creator merely counters, ``Don't be insolent.'' The two agree, at one point, that they have become ``mired in verbal quicksand,'' and there are moments when the audience is likely to agree.
Harders has a gift for visual staging, but for the sparks to fly, he needs a better script.
The theater is staging a special Halloween performance Thursday, and the audience is invited to come in costume. ILLUSTRATION: THEATER REVIEW
What: ``Playing With Fire (After Frankenstein)'' by Barbara Field
Where: The Generic Theater, 912 W. 21st St., Norfolk
Who: Directed by Steven Harders. Cast features Jay Lockamy, Stan
Baranowski, Scott Rollins, Sean O'Reilly, Lesa Azimi, Frank
McCaffery
When: Tonight at 8, Sunday at 2 p.m. Continuing through Nov. 17
How Much: $12 Fridays and Saturday, $10 Thursdays and Sundays,
with senior and student discounts available
Call: 441-2729 or 441-2160 by CNB