Surreal 'Frankenstein' opens

Frankenstein went surreal for the first time last night. Working in conjunction with the 1993 Freshman Reading Project, Penn's Theater Arts Program unfortunately transformed Mary Shelley's novel into an hour of piecemeal drama. Under the obvious influence of director Chris Hariasz's contemporary Polish theater background, six theater arts majors collaborated this summer to adapt Shelley's Frankenstein to the stage. This group of talented Penn students culled from sources such as the Bible and Milton's Paradise Lost. Like a human body, composed of different parts, Frankenstein features a series of individual scenes of different shapes and sizes. Yet Frankenstein remains disjointed and incoherent from beginning to end. In the traditional spirit of Frankenstein, this sense of incoherence and abstraction creates a mysterious aura. The performance opens with Mary Shelley, played by 1993 College graduate Alexandra Lopez, in an almost ritual act of creation. With the use of such minimal props as the human body, white sheets, and clever lighting, Lopez and the other actors set the stage alive in a pulsating frenzy of generation. The play quickly degenerates into a jumble of scenes and dramatic moments lacking meaningful transitions. Just as characters would begin to develop and the audience would begin to understand, the scene would end abruptly and leap to another time and place. Lacking a narrative story line, Frankenstein was not without visual coherence. On the contrary, in the area of visual symbolism the play erred on the side of repetition. What could have been a brilliant use of a white flower as a symbol of life became instead a monotonous replay of the same theme. Frankenstein was a challenge to produce and a challenge to watch. By raising troubling issues about the nature of power and the responsibilities of creation, the play leaves the audience with unanswered questions. Frankenstein runs from tonight through Saturday in the Annenberg Studio Theater. The $5 tickets are on sale on Locust Walk and at the Annenberg Box Office.