by Will Johnson, Hayfield Secondary School Cappies
Center stage, down front, and illuminated by eerie green lighting, the audience is confronted by a grave. Looking down into a grave is never comforting. Looking into the grave of a loved one is even worse. In Meridian High School’s Frankenstein, the audience witnesses Mary Shelley’s descent into madness as she stares at the graves of both her mother and of the fictional characters of her own design.
Frankenstein, by Danielle Mohlman is an enthralling twist on the classic story. Premiering as a workshop at Meridian High School in 2020, Frankenstein enjoyed a few runs in professional theater in 2022, only to reappear where it all started at Meridian. The tragic events of the book unfolded as Mary Shelley (Abby Berg) wrote for the ghost of her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft (Samantha Grooms). As the book’s events played out, parallels of abuse and neglect were drawn between Shelley’s life and the story of the Creature, highlighted by the fact that the two were played by the same actor.
With the audience’s hands grasping at their armrests, Berg gave a standout performance in both roles with an unnerving commitment to portraying the experience of living in an abusive environment. As the ghosts of Shelley’s fictional characters appeared in the study, Berg cried out for a peace that was never given. Their ability to shift between the mannerisms of the Creature and Mary Shelley was seamless, performing feats of dance, athleticism, and balance to simulate the Creature’s superhuman abilities, and establishing power dynamics in the scenes. Berg’s face conjured a mixture of guilt, grief, and helplessness that never lost its gravity.
The Creature’s dynamic with Victor Frankenstein (Hugo Ratheau) was filled with a toxic tension of unrelenting hatred. Ratheau fluidly navigated both sides of Victor, the warm and the cold. His pensive and analytical moments with his best friend and perhaps something more, Henry Clerval (Alex Fulgham), were a perfect complement to the moments of the show when the character is panicked beyond belief at what been created. Ratheau and Berg worked in tandem to represent the cycles of abuse that women at the time endured.
The performance as a whole was greatly enhanced by the sound (Tyler Jones, Ashe Stoner, Carlos Ortiz) and special effects (Naomi Lewis, Millie Beaudry, Carlos Ortiz (sfx), Sean Cuniffe). The Creature’s voice had a chilling overlay that helped set apart that element of Berg’s performance. The sound team worked with precise timing, creating a seamless transition between the characters. The student drawn projections also served to set the scene, with befitting color palettes for scene changes, such as vibrant greens and blues for a picnic or an empty gray background in Shelley’s home. The projections also enhanced the production through recordings of characters during pivotal, hair-raising moments of nightmares and chases.
The whole performance was underlined by a bone-rattling score composed by student, Carlos Ortiz, over a period of seven months. The scene of Shelley’s child dying as an infant was accompanied by music played in reverse, providing an unsettling tension with a combination of strings and electric instruments, creating an unrelenting aural pressure.
For a story that is already so well known, finding a fresh take should have been a challenge. Meridian High School embraced that challenge and exceeded expectations with a bold approach to piecing together a monster of a show that evoked empathy while also being a horrifying display of humanity’s shortcomings.
