MONSTER completed the Barn Theatre’s current season in Welwyn Garden City in impressive style. Joseph Kerr reviews the chilling and thoughtful production.
THE Barn’s final show of the current season, Monster, is an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s famous horror story, Frankenstein, that strips away all the exaggerations – and occasional slapstick – of countless film and stage versions to get back to the essentially intelligent, though nonetheless spine-chilling, nature of the original novel.
As a play, I thought this version was even better than the one directed by Danny Boyle at the National Theatre last year.
The Barn cannot of course rival the stunning stage effects one routinely sees at the National, but within the limits of the small space available to them they achieved some real stage magic.
The many background projections, distorted versions of what looked like early black and white photographs, were probably the best I have seen there, and the sound effects too added enormously to the suspense and reality of the story.
At his first appearance Frankenstein’s creation was winched up feet first and almost naked from below the stage; that and the subsequent bringing him to life was a truly striking piece of theatre.
The action of the play switches to and fro between the Arctic, where the captain of an ice-entombed ship spots Victor Frankenstein seeking out “the Creature” in his final refuge, and earlier scenes of Victor as a boy and at university, followed by the disastrous consequences of his later abandonment of the Creature.
It never ceases to astonish me how the Barn manages to cast 10 plays every year with such highly competent actors.
I’m told that five of the 12 actors in this production are new to the Barn’s stage, and the standard of performance throughout was really excellent.
I don’t have space to mention them all, but I would particularly praise Sam Underwood as Victor, Emily Curry as his beloved cousin Elizabeth, Rhys José as William, and Fulya Burke as the wronged maidservant Justine.
Best of all though was Ben Roper as the Creature, who gave an immensely skilled and intelligent performance that made us pity him as much as we might fear him.
Magnificent!
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