Noh-distilled Frankenstein

Theatre of Yugen opens its twenty-fifth silver anniversary season this Halloween with Erik Ehn’s haunting adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Longtime Artistic Associate Erik Ehn will also direct the company whose signature experimental work is based in a discipline of the classic Japanese theater forms – Noh and Kyogen.

The story of Frankenstein’s monstrous creation has fascinated artists
in many disciplines since Mary Shelley first enshrined the rage and
loneliness of the Monster in the public consciousness during the
early 19th century. Ehn has pared down Shelley’s text in an
interpretation that uses the intense, restrained and stylized acting
style of Noh to capture the constricted emotional tone and horror of
the play.