Los Angeles Review: “Frankenstein” is Alive at The Wallis
Jill Weinlein - Chief Los Angeles Theatre Critic
“Frankenstein” now at the 150-seat Lovelace Studio Theatre at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts is more a theatrical modern dance performance with live music and experiential design.
Four Larks’ Mat Sweeney, a 2020 Dorothy and Richard E. Sherwood Award-winner is not only the creator, but director and music director, while Sebastian Peters-Lazaro designed the set lined with skeletons, body parts, globes and medical equipment. He also choreographs the 75-minute production that begins with six musicians on a white set with Mary Shelley (Claire Woolner) in period costumes by costume designer Lena Sands. Most of the actors double as musicians playing woodwinds, guitar, violin, bass, and percussion.
Music plays as the 12 performers speak and sing passages from Shelley’s novel and diary. In conjunction with the 200th anniversary of this classic story, we learn of Mary’s “exquisite pleasure of childhood,” as she shadows Victor Frankenstein (Kila Packett) and “penetrates the secrets of nature” through play.
When misfortune occurs, and a storm brews, the musicians including percussionist James Waterman perform thunder sounds, while lighting designer Brandon Baruch illuminates the stage with lightning, and shadows of the performers in the cemetery scene.
Once Mary arrives at a university she becomes fascinated with the “phenomenon of the human frame.” Soon the cast partially undress, with the female performers wearing only a black band across their chest and nude colored spanks.
Modern day props are interwoven in this historic tale that seemed to distract from the story, including some of the performers singing with clear plastic cheek retractors exaggerating their mouth, and others holding light sabers and wearing virtual reality head sets.
Mary standing next to Victor Frankenstein with a workshop of body parts, collects the instruments of life and uses the inside of a grand piano as an operating table.
The standout performances include dancer Max Baumgarten as the creature. His movements are almost inhuman, as if an invisible string is uplifting him off the ground. With each movement to rise, he is shocked and collapses on the ground. Wearing little to the imagination, the protective kneepads and stitching enhance the monster-like appearance of this talented modern dancer. His physicality in this performance is almost akin to a new born foal attempting to stand for the very first time.
We watch as Baumgarten longs for companionship as he observes a joyless family from afar. The sightless father (Philip Graulty) strums his guitar, as Sister Agnes (Yvette Cornelia Holzwarth), Sister Agatha (Katherine Washington) and Brother Felix (Lukas Papenfusscline) occupy a house. They don’t speak words at first, just recite sounds as a form of communication, while gathering at a table to pray before their daily ritual of eating. The creature mimics their movements as he adopts this family. Screens come down so the audience can see various projections of what is happening on stage at different angles.
Sneaking into his adopted family’s house, he lovingly brings them food to eat. This creates joy and soon they speak in words. When the monster believes its time to introduce himself to his family, he first sneaks back in and touches the blind father. “Chaos greeted him, impervious to touch or sight,” yet when the brother and sisters arrive and see the creature, they beat, kick and hurt him. He delivers Shelley’s prose “Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”
A second stunning performer Joanna Lynn-Jacobs (Future Female) dressed in white is introduced after the creature recites another one of Shelley’s famous lines, “I am alone and miserable. Only someone as ugly as I am could love me.”
With Victor Frankenstein at the grand piano again, the “Future Female” is led to the middle of the stage and places her wrists into leather straps, almost Jesus-like. Her body becomes a projection screen displaying her bones, body parts, organs and other clever images by Projection Designer Laskfar Vortok.
This production of “Frankenstein” illuminates the ethical questions about science and technology in a collage of creative storytelling.
‘Frankenstein’ Artists:
Mat Diafos Sweeny (Creator, Director and Music Director), Sebastian Peters-Lazaro (Design and Choreography), Max Baumgarten (Creature and performer), Philip Graulty (performer), Claire Woolner (Mary Shelley), Kila Packett (Victor Frankenstein), Joanna Lynn-Jacobs (Elizabeth and Future Female), Craig Piaget (Henry Clerval and performer), Lukas Papenfusscline (Capt. Waltron, Brother Felix), Katherine Holzwarth (Violin, Sister Agatha) Yvetter Cornelia Holzwarth (violin, Sister Agnes), Philip Graulty (Father, guitarist), Lu Coy (woodwind, performer), James Vitz-Wong (Bass, performer) and James Waterman (Percussion and performer).
Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Lovelace Studio Theater, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. The Tuesdays-Fridays show is at 8 p.m., 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. on Sundays, through March 7.
Tickets: $60
Info: (310) 746-4000 or thewallis.org/Frankenstein
Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Photo by Kevin Parry.