Reviewed By: Trav SD · Jun 2, 2000
· New York
 | | From Frankenstein |
It is entirely fitting that the Axis Theatre Company chose as their next vehicle an examination of the Frankenstein story. The praxis of Axis is, after all, an unrepentant, unremitting technophilia. As in their previous work, the current Frankenstein (playing through June 17) leans heavily on the designer's art--with top-notch set, sound, lighting, and costume design all in place--as well as a continously running film playing upstage on a pair of video monitors. A pre-show documentary informs us about serial killer H.H. Holmes, who is supposed to have killed 140 women at the 1892 Chicago World's Fair. This is accompanied by a sound installation of moans, rumbles and squeaks, and an exhibition of electrically back-lit decorative glass in the Frank Lloyd Wright style that graces the lobby. Theater for Axis is a symphony of electric and electronic elements, revolving around the human specimens at the center: the actors.
Under the microscope in this production is a Frankensteinian composite of Mary Shelley's hero, Frank Lloyd Wright, and the aforementioned Holmes. The three personae fit together as complementary facets of a single character: "Frank", a terrifyingly recognizable new archetype. Frank (David Guion) is a handsome and charming American architect (or scientist? no one is really quite sure) with a sinister plan. He will lure unsuspecting World's Fair visitors to stay in his new hotel (wonderfully designed by David Ramirez and Randy Sharp in imitation of Frank Lloyd Weight), where he will gas them, cut up their bodies, and attempt to reassemble them into a new person. To help him realize his scheme, he has hired two nearly identical building contractors in bowler hats (Brian Barnhart and Jim Sterling). The contractors are spineless. Though they have some vague misgivings about taking on such a job, they soon stain themselves in blood.
The common denominator in the three disparate characters looted to build Frank soon becomes obvious: their ruthless, thoughtless modernism.  | | From Frankenstein |
They are the makers and the products of "progress". The connections between Victor Frankenstein and H.H. Holmes are obvious. Frankenstein, of course, is Shelley's "modern Prometheus", who never troubles himself to question the morality of meddling in questions of life and death. Holmes had built his own custom-made death hotel, full of contraptions and traps that allowed him to efficiently murder a large number of people, presaging the even greater efficiency of mass murder in the 20th century.
The less-obvious Frank Lloyd Wright connection, however, is really what brings this production home. A friendly, can-do guy, Frank is a practical sort of genius--immature, inarticulate, and non-intellectual. He is motivated completely by instinct in the fashion of the Great American Inventor. He proceeds without the benefit of scientific method, just: "Let' s cut up a bunch of dead people and see if we can put 'em together and make a person." He uses glue to stick the parts together. The monster is not brought to life with electricty, but by being scared awake with a small hand bell. When the monster is going to recite a poem, Frank gives him a thumbs up, but when it turns out to be T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men", he says, "Gee, I don't know about this kinda stuff."
It is the apparent lack of sophistication that charms both the victims and the two death-contractors to do his bidding. When he wants to kill somebody, he merely opens the door to his death-box and says, "Would you mind lying down inside here? I just wanna see somethin'." His manner is so friendly he couldn't possibly be dangerous, and so they comply. Likewise, with his pair of Igors, Frank cheerfully instructs, "I'll just tell you fellahs what to do, and you just kinda do it!"
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