For one night only at Peak Performances: An inventive, multimedia take on ‘Frankenstein’

by JACQUELINE LARCARA
frankenstein montclair state

MICHAEL BROSILOW

Sarah Fornace in Manual Cinema’s production of “Frankenstein.”

It is hard to put into concise words what the upcoming production of “Frankenstein” at the Peak Performances series of Montclair State University is, exactly.

You could say it is a silent film meets live radio show meets shadow play. Or, as Peak Performances director Wiley Hausam puts it, “it’s a something else.”

But he mostly categorizes the genre-bending show, which will be staged for just one night — May 3 at Montclair State’s Alexander Kasser Theater — as a silent film.

“If I had to think of, ‘What’s the dominant mode of expression that I get?’ It’s that sense of a silent film, which of course a lot of people haven’t seen,” he says. “It’s like low-tech, old-fashioned tech in a very kind of postmodern, theatrical way.”

MICHAEL BROSILOW

Sarah Fornace, left, and Julia Miller in Manual Cinema’s “Frankenstein.”

About a century after the silent film era, the Chicago-based, Emmy-winning performance collective Manual Cinema has reinvented the medium for a contemporary audience by combining it with many other arts forms, onstage.

There is a small screen, a few overhead projectors and a big screen, and “that’s kind of the main event,” Hausam says.

“Everything is happening onstage in front of you, in different ways, in many different disciplines,” says Hausam, later adding that “one of the artistic directors of the company says that they are ‘making a live movie onstage, in front of a live audience.’ ”

Actors “are in costume and makeup, and they are in front of the small screen creating shadows that get projected up onto the big screen,” he says. Then, a few more people are manipulating the projectors and making the scene transitions happen. All while a musical ensemble creates live music and sound effects.

The sense of showing the audience the finished product while also giving them a glimpse behind the scenes at how the work is created is reminiscent of a live radio show, says Hausam. “This is a more extensive version of that.”

But there is no spoken word. This rendition of Mary Shelley’s 1818 Gothic novel relies on puppetry and shadows. Plus, it incorporates some biographical information on Shelley. “It’s as much about Mary Shelley’s life as it is about her creation: the Frankenstein story,” says Hausam.

Audiences don’t need to be familiar with Shelley’s biography as the shadow play will communicate her story. “And I think that the Frankenstein myth — the idea of a human-created monster — is so in our culture that even if you don’t know the work ‘Frankenstein’ and who wrote it, you’ll get this idea very quickly,” says Hausam.

In the beginning of the piece, Shelley, who is married to poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, is pregnant. “He’s a writer and she’s a writer, but he’s the person who’s more acclaimed and getting more attention,” says Hausam. “It’s that kind of unfortunately historical situation of a woman’s talent not being as front and center (as a man’s) because of society.”

An image from Manual Cinema’s “Frankenstein.”

The show — which is recommended for ages 8 and up due to a scene portraying infant death — is about 65 minutes long, “but very full,” says Hausam, as there are many layers to the production.

The novel’s characters have often been misrepresented in pop culture. The monster is thought to be named Frankenstein while, in Shelley’s story, Dr. Victor Frankenstein is the scientist who creates the creature. “Over time we’ve begun to think of the monster as Frankenstein,” says Hausam, “It’s sort of interesting, isn’t it? It’s like if you created the monster, then maybe you are the monster.”

You could compare Manual Cinema, in a sense, to Dr. Frankenstein, since the company specializes in reviving arts disciplines that have largely gone by the wayside, to create something new. “I would love to have a conversation with them about how they discovered this way of making theater and what inspired them, and how they work,” says Hausam. (After the Montclair State show, audience members who share Hausam’s fascination will be invited to come onstage and talk to the ensemble, and hear how they do what they do.)

Hausam notes that not every source material would lend itself to this form of art. But because “Frankenstein” has a spooky quality to it, it works.

“When the image is communicated as a shadow, already you’re getting into truly dark territory,” he says.

Peak Performances will present “Frankenstein” at The Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University, May 3 at 8 p.m. Visit peakperfs.org.

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