imitating the dog is a company who have developed an international reputation for high-tech reinventions of classic movies and texts, so it’s not surprising they’ve taking on Mary Shelley’s Gothic classic Frankenstein.
This time Co-Artistic Directors Pete Brooks, Andrew Quick and Simon Wainwright are bringing their trademark multimedia experience to rethink this timeless novel as a psychological thriller that asks the eternal question – what is it to be human?
In this version a couple are forced to confront their own fears about impending parenthood in a version of the Frankenstein myth that erupts into life as everyday objects are transformed into glaciers, a ship at sea, a dissecting room and a house on fire.
imitating the dog’s two-handed version of Frankenstein will feature RSC actor Georgia-Mae Myers and Nedum Okonyia. Set and Costume Designer Hayley Grindle has created a transformative space featuring the digital tricks and video-mapping techniques traditionally associated with imitating the dog.
Our Features Editor Paul Clarke spoke to co-director Andrew Quick to find out they’re turned a work that was hailed as the first science fiction novel into a stage production.
The Frankenstein story is so much part of our culture, from the novel to the classic black and white movie, and even a Mel Brooks spoof, so what’s your source material?
In our adaptation of Frankenstein, we’ve got the original novel, and the stories if you read the novel are often a dialogue or an encounter between the creature and its creator, or Victor Frankenstein and somebody else, it suits a two hander in that sense.
And how does this anxious young couple about to create their own new life – albeit in a less gruesome way – fit in?
They tell the story of Frankenstein, the original novel, pared down though, stripped to its essentials. Running parallel to this story is the story of a young couple in their early mid 20s who are struggling with the possibility of having, or not having, a baby. They’re trapped in this flat, six floors up and the world’s going on below and around them, and they’re kind of dealing with this big event in their lives. So, the idea of creating new life, which is in the novel and responsibility of that, what it might do and how it might change things haunts the couple’s story about whether they’re going to have this baby or not, and how it’s going to affect them.
Ok, but how does the creature that Frankenstein created in the novel come into this?
This is a bit of a spoiler, but in the couple’s story there’s this man we call in the text Shouty Man. This figure is in the square by the flats, is he homeless, he’s clearly having a very bad time, and it connects to the creature. They have pity for him, and they worry about what this man is and what he symbolises. There are kind of theatrical connections between their life and the life in the novel, and then the two stories eventually start to crossover.
Are you touching on the huge responsibility that comes when you create another life, whether that’s through pregnancy, or by nicking body parts and stitching them together?
You’ve hit the nail right on the head, I think that’s what we’re exploring. So there’s responsibility, and the other big hidden narrative in the novel, which is why it’s so extraordinary, is this exploration of love. What the creature demands in the novel is love and can’t bear rejection. And it gets rejected not only by the creator, the mother/father figure Victor Frankenstein, but also by everybody else.
Obviously imitating the dog has a reputation for reinventing classic texts or classic movies and using a lot of technology in your storytelling, so what can we expect in this production?
It’s slightly different, we don’t have the live cameras so we’re not doing live movie making. We have got a lot of projections, beautiful tricks within the set and secret screens and screens that move around. I think the tone is slightly more intimate, moving, elegiac, having that said that electricity is a big theme in the piece. A kind of global sense of something changing, which is done through quite amazing lighting, so I think it will be very visually attractive and it’s got a fantastic soundtrack, so it’s got a lot of our usual stuff. There’s a kind of lingering on material that I don’t think we’ve done for quite a while.
Your pieces are always a combination of raw human emotions and the tech but you’re introducing another physical aspect to this production?
There’s a movement, a physical dance landscape to it as well which we haven’t done before for a long time. A lot of our first shows had this sort of physical performance language and we’ve always talked about returning to. So, I’m working with this great young choreographer from Belgium called Casper Dillen. He’s really introducing this choreographic element which links to the worlds that we’re talking about, the Frankenstein world and the couple’s world as well. That’s done to this beautiful set of songs Mahler wrote for dead children. So, there’s a kind of theme in it as well.
Frankenstein will premiere at Leeds Playhouse from 15th – 24th February and will then tour to Oxford Playhouse, Watford Palace Theatre, The Lowry, Salford Quays, Cast, Doncaster, Mercury Theatre, Colchester, Liverpool Playhouse, The Dukes Lancaster, and Northern Stage, Newcastle. The production will also tour Switzerland in March.
Frankenstein is at Leeds Playhouse from 15th – 24th February. To book 0113 213 7700 or online leedsplayhouse.org.uk
For tickets and further information about the Frankenstein tour visit imitatingthedog.co.uk