Stage review: Spokane Civic Theatre’s ‘Frankenstein’ calls audiences to question villainization in a broken world

There is something special about being part of an audience where it feels like everyone in the room is holding their breath, at least a little bit.

I felt that from the moment the Creature (Rhead Shirley) burst – literally – from the stage in Spokane Civic Theatre’s production of “Frankenstein,” directed by Preston Loomer.

The opening minutes consist of nothing but Shirley getting a hold of his body, a being who has only just started being, and I was captivated as he grunted and moaned and writhed around the stage.

Shirley displayed incredible control of his body, especially when it looked like he had no control. With each failed attempt to get his arms underneath him, then with each stumble and fall as he tried to stand, I was rooting for the Creature.

When Shirley was finally able to stand and take a few tentative steps, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Nick Dear’s “Frankenstein,” a stage adaptation of “Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus” by Mary Shelley, shows the story of the creature created from human corpses and brought to life from the Creature’s perspective.

Victor Frankenstein (Dallan Starks), the man responsible for the Creature, takes one look at the scarred and scared being in front of him and runs away in fear.

The Creature wanders through town and stumbles on a prostitute named Gretel (Emma Dennis) being assaulted. He frightens off the attacker, but a mob of villagers chases him away.

The next morning, the Creature finds Frankenstein’s journal before being attacked by two beggars after trying to take their food. The Creature hides in an old cottage, the home to a married couple named Felix (Dennis) and Agatha (Eupheme Carruthers) and Felix’s father Delacey (Jason Young).

The Creature comes to care for the family and secretly helps them with their land. Delacey, a blind man, finds the Creature and teaches him to speak, read and write. The Creature is then able to read Frankenstein’s journal and learn about the man who created him.

Though he is reluctant to meet them, the Creature is introduced to Felix and Agatha, who immediately chase him out. The Creature gets his revenge on the family before vowing to get revenge on Frankenstein for bringing him into a world that does not understand him.

Seeing the world through the Creature’s eyes was such an interesting experience. Audiences watch the Creature feel the sun and raindrops on his skin for the first time, hear birdsong and eat for the first time, ravenously, only to later get sick.

He grunts with joy after successfully putting on a pair of pants he found but also moans in frustration upon realizing he cannot read Frankenstein’s journal and seeing his own reflection.

Delacey helped immensely with the Creature’s growth, teaching him to express his thoughts and emotions, stilted at first, then more fluently.

I loved the scenes between Delacey and the Creature. Young brought so much kindness and patience to Delacey, who shared perhaps the most poignant line of the show “Evil is a product of social forces.”

With Delacey, the Creature saw snow, read “Paradise Lost” and learned about original sin. He was also finally able to read Frankenstein’s journal. The Creature wondered where he was from, whether he had a family, why Delacey knew so much and he knew so little. He dreamed about loving a woman (in a beautiful dance sequence with Carruthers) and wondered why he was always hungry.

In all, the Creature learned what it meant to be alive.

Even after the Creature learned to speak, write and read, at no point in the performance did Shirley forget that he was made up of pieces. His movements and speech were never perfectly smooth, and it made the difference between him and a “true” human ever present.

After Felix and Agatha drive the Creature away, he finds William Frankenstein (a sweet Katelyn Rush, who also plays Gustav, a constable and a servant), who leads him to Frankenstein. I loved watching the change in Starks’ eyes, first fear, then pride at what he created, as he saw what the Creature was capable of.

“I failed to make it handsome, but I gave it strength and grace,” he says to the Creature.

The Creature asks Frankenstein to make a Female Creature for him, promising that he will leave forever if he does. Frankenstein, after some reluctance, agrees. Dennis, as his fiancée Elizabeth Lavenza, tries to persuade him to stay, focus on their impending marriage and, heartbreakingly, simply spend time with her, but he leaves for England and his laboratory.

Young, as Ewan, and Nicholas Roy Morgan III, who also plays Frankenstein’s father and Klaus, as Rab, were really funny as they brought bodies to Frankenstein’s lab, and we do meet the Female Creature (Carruthers), who the Creature immediately falls for, but Frankenstein tells the Creature he cannot give her to him out of fear that they will have Creature children together.

It is one betrayal too many, and the Creature makes sure Frankenstein knows how it feels to hurt.

The production, set in the round on a beautiful stage from Peter Rossing, made full use of the space, and full use of the actors, who, save for Shirley and Starks, played multiple roles. I especially enjoyed costume designer Jamie L. Suter’s work with Shirley’s costume, which started with a nude bodysuit covered in scars to pants, a shirt and a shawl, echoing the Creature’s growth over the course of the show.

In his director’s note, Loomer writes “Are humans born to be monsters? Or is it the product of a broken world, a society demonizing those who don’t make sense to them, villainizing people for merely existing differently, forced to destroy in order to survive?”

This echoes one of the last things the Creature says to Frankenstein: “I’m different. Why can I not be who I am?”

It was heartbreaking to watch the Creature, once so pleased about something as simple as snowfall, turn to hate after receiving nothing but that from nearly everyone in his life. It makes you think twice about those seemingly filled with nothing but hate and anger. Were they always like this or did others make them so? Given their circumstances, do they even have a choice?

“Frankenstein” runs through Nov. 2 at Spokane Civic Theatre.