Hippodrome's  'Frankenstein' like no other

                   By ARLINE GREER
                   Sun theater critic 
 
 

Joy Schiebel, left, Jade Servin and Timothy Altmeyer in a scene from "Frankenstein."  PATRICK LEONARD/Special to The Sun

Looking forward to getting a good scare at the Hippodrome's Frankenstein"? Better reconsider. This is not Boris Karloff's "Frankenstein," and it's certainly not Mel Brooks.' Director Lauren Caldwell's interpretation of Mary Shelley's classic could easily be subtitled after Calderon's "La Vida es Sue–o," or "Life Is a Dream."

                      The entire play is staged like one long dream
                   sequence and performed like a ballet, its dance
                   configurations interspersed with dialogue. Ric
                   Rose, who choreographed the play and appears
                   in it as Victor Frankenstein's doppelganger
                   (ghostly double) has created a visually beautiful
                   spectacle enchanted by Douglas Maxwell's
                   musical soundtrack resounding with medieval
                   chants. 

                   The play's characters, dressed in Marilyn
                   Wall-Asse's futuristic white costumes, seem to
                   float to the stage, moving in deliberate slow
                   motion until they are positioned for their
                   dialogue. They move on James Morgan's bare
                   set, flanked by two tall columns leading to an
                   overhead platform. During moments of dramatic
                   climax, lightning flashes, thunder rolls and the
                   ongoing stage dance is galvanized by a blast of
                   sensory stimuli. 

                   Adapted by  Victor Gialanella, the well-known
                   story of  "Frankenstein" remains the same.
                   Scientist Victor  Frankenstein, who is determined to
                   create a humanbeing from dead body parts, enlists
                   the help of his friend, Henry. The success of his experiment
                   results in the creation of a primitive creature,
                   ugly and deformed. (Ugliness is left to the
                   viewer's imagination in this production.) Mark
                   Sexton, who plays the creature, shows him as a
                   victim of scientific meddling. 

                   A lonely almost-man, he is helpless to control
                   his murderous acts. Ultimately Frankenstein, his
                   creator, passionately performed by Timothy
                   Altmeyer, loses all that he loves. 

                   Frankenstein's moments of agony are mirrored
                   by his doppelganger, danced by Rose with so
                   much dramatic intensity that words seem
                   unnecessary. This is probably a good thing, as
                   Gialanella's dialogue for "Frankenstein" is
                   ponderous, filled with cliches, and has little to
                   recommend it. If the entire production were
                   performed to dance with all dialogue eliminated,
                   it would make a splendid ballet. 

                   It is to the actors' credit that every one of them
                   moves like a dancer. In addition to the
                   mannered and sensual performances by
                   Altmeyer and Rose, credo for outstanding work
                   goes to Cameron Francis as Henry, Joy
                   Schiebel as Victor's lovely fiance Elizabeth, and
                   Sara Morsey both as a society lady and as a
                   blind woman. 

                   The Hippodrome production of "Frankenstein"
                   is altogether a sensual experience, eerily
                   beautiful and spectacular. It is the stuff of bizarre
                   dreams, and although its dialogue is inadequate
                   to express any specific philosophy, its symbolic
                   use of dance, music, sound and light may be
                   enough. 
 
 

                           All stories copyright © 1996-98, The
                        Gainesville Sun. No portions may be re-posted
                          without written permission of the author.
                        Contact sun@atlantic.net for more information.

                        SunONE is a trademark of The New York Times
                                    Company.

Moon Magazine   Nov 99

On the Aisle
by Shamrock McShane

Aristotle ranked spectacle at the bottom of his hierarchy of dramatic
elements, but he conceded its force as primal. Now, if you want to feel
the power of theater - visually, aurally, viscerally - you must see
Frankenstein at the Hippodrome.

Of course Aristotle never met the Hipp’s special effects team of
lighting designer Robert P. Robins, production manager Timothy J.
Dygert, and sound designer Douglas Maxwell. If he had, they might have
blown Ari away with a fusillade of atmospherics.

The real star of Frankenstein, however, is director Lauren Caldwell,
whose vision of Frankenstein is evocative of Strindberg’s Dream Play,
where characters and situations merge in poetic effusion.

The sweep of Caldwell’s Frankenstein is operatic. The script by Victor
Gialenella cannot escape the narrative clumsiness of Mary Shelley’s
novel, but Caldwell has siezed upon Shelley’s potently romantic ideas
and infused the production with the spirit of Wagner, who thought the
theater a place for myth-making and that the drama should be "dipped in
the magic fountain of music."

Make no mistake, this Frankenstein is no trick or treat. There is a
palpable solemnity in the ritualistic movement of the ensemble. But the
rite is a frenzied one.

Caldwell and costume designer Marilyn Wall-Asse animate their dream of
Frankenstein in a frightening purity, clothed in white, so that the play
seems to rush at us and recede. The rhythmic effect is like a heartbeat.

As Harold Bloom has pointed out, the paradox of Frankenstein is that the
monster is more human than his creator. This shows in Mark Sexton’s
performance as the Creature, perhaps his finest work.

Sexton made an auspicious debut on the Hipp stage as Alan Strang in
Equus in 1977. The years have transformed Sexton into a character actor.
And now, here he is, twenty years later, in practically the same
costume, crying his lonliness across the fog-girt landscape of the
kingdom of the dead.

Even so urbane a theater-goer as MOON publisher Mike Podolsky admitted
being challenged. "I’m having a bit of trouble with the interpretive
dance," Podolsky confided at intermission on opening night.

Be brave. Caldwell believes the artist’s task is to lead, not follow.
Reach for it. While the superb Timothy Altmeyer plays Frankenstein, Rick
Rose, the dancer, plays a part of Frankenstein. He is contorted with a
tortured lyricism. As Goethe said, "Alas, two souls dwell within my
breast."

The Hippodrome’s current season offers two plays, Frankenstein and Hedda
Gabler, that will allow the panoply of its creativity free reign. The
unfortunate reality is that scripts in the full flower of their recent
Off-Broadway success impose creative strictures on those who would
reproduce them. With Frankenstein, the Hippodrome has truly created a
monster, and it is awesome.
 
 

Independent Florida Alligator 10/21/99

                  By Trey Csar 
                  I expected nothing but the best from director Lauren Caldwell
                  after her last performance I saw at the Hippodrome State
                  Theatre. 

                  That show was "Like Totally Weird," but its twisted look at
                  violence in our media did nothing to prepare me for the
                  surrealistic "modern adaptation" of Mary Shelley's famous
                  horror novel "Frankenstein." 

                  Bathed in aqua light and a fog-machine-induced haze, the
                  story of Victor Frankenstein's creation of a hideous creature
                  is told. While the play follows fairly closely to Shelley's
                  novel, the visual presentation is entirely non-traditional. 

                  The ballet-like movements of doctor Frankenstein, played by
                  Timothy Altmeyer, are mirror-imaged by a silent Ric Rose
                  throughout the show. Later, it becomes clear that Rose
                  represents the responsibility Frankenstein carries for the
                  actions of the creature he designed. 

                  The creation of the creature, played by Mark Sexton, is
                  easily one of the most impressive displays of lighting I have
                  seen in any live show. Hooked up to a pair of laptop
                  computers (a little out of place considering the time period
                  was the early 1800's, but I guess that's "modern
                  interpretation"), the creature awakens and the audience
                  squints when a lightning bolt strikes, illuminating the stage. 

                  The visual adaptation of the creature's murder of most of the
                  main characters in the play is also very unusual. Rose
                  dances around the victim, entwined in a peculiar type of knot
                  as the two emulate a fistfight. Meanwhile, the creature
                  mocks Rose's hitting and striking motions, though he never
                  comes within 10 feet of Rose or the victim. 

                  The set, lighting and sound amply augment the action seen
                  on stage. 

                  The set is split into three distinct areas, two at ground level
                  (in the foreground and background) and one set of
                  scaffolding six feet in the air. In the background area of the
                  stage, the characters move in slow motion toward the bright
                  light streaming in from both sides, adding to the dreamlike
                  atmosphere. 

                  Much of the action is accompanied by a type of slow,
                  new-wave musical tones that fits in well with the lighting and
                  characters' movements. The play's actions are a little too
                  abstract for my tastes, as my reading of the novel leads me
                  to expect a show of the violence and evil present in the
                  human soul. The presentation, however, is an interesting
                  twist on the old story. 

                  The two-person presentation of Frankenstein's character I
                  liked, visually linking him to the creature and the creature's
                  actions. The "evil" side of Frankenstein's soul, however,
                  likely would have been better presented as a brutally intense
                  Amazing Hulk-type creature during the murder scenes. 

                  Overall, the play is an interesting look at the more artsy side
                  of Shelley's tale and definitely worth a couple of hours out of
                  your evening. 
                  © Copyright 1999 Campus Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. No
                   Portion of Alligator Online or The Independent Florida Alligator may be
                   reproduced in any means without written consent of an officer of Campus
                                  Communications, Inc.

                                     (10/21/99)

                   By BILL DeYOUNG
                   Sun entertainment editor 
  

The Baltimore-born actress, who plays doomed Elizabeth Lavenza in the Hippodrome State Theatre's current production, "Frankenstein," knew from an early age that theater was her destiny.  "My father loves to tell  the story about my great-uncle, who's a cancer surgeon," Schiebel explains. "He's probably 90, and he  still  does things like go on boat trips around Ireland - and he runs the boat, he does everything. My father says 'Uncle Max always knew what he wanted to do, and that's just like you,  Joy.'"

"Frankenstein" is the fourth Hippodrome show for New York actress Joy Schiebel.  MATT MAY/Special to The Sun

                   Like many regional theaters, the Hippodrome often flies its
                   artistic director - in this case, it's Lauren Caldwell - to New
                   York to audition fresh talent. Caldwell first cast Schiebel in
                   1997's "Dracula"; the twenty-something actress
                   subsequently appeared in the acclaimed "Three Tall
                   Women" and "The Glass Menagerie." 

                   Schiebel raves about Caldwell, who's directing
                   "Frankenstein" as an abstract, white-light nightmare. From
                   the beginning, Caldwell insisted her "Frankenstein" was not
                   going to be a literal translation. Schiebel says the cast
                   members learned to think the director's way. 

                   "I think we all at some point were saying 'What are we
                   doing?' But not in a way that we were questioning Lauren.
                   We were trying to do something innovative and different:
                   'How do we get to that? How do we make that clear?' 

                   "The coolest thing about Lauren is she doesn't tell you how
                   to do stuff. She always says 'This is what I have in my
                   mind.' So many directors will say 'I want you to do this, like
                   this. I want you to move on this line, then scratch your
                   head.' She gives the actors so much freedom, and yet she
                   has such a strong vision that I think she always gets what
                   she wants." 

                   Caldwell says she likes having a strong core company of
                   good actors. "Joy surfaced to the top as one of those
                   people," she explains. "I like her in the room, I think she's
                   talented, she is open and wonderful in the rehearsal
                   process. She just surfaced to the top, for me, as one of
                   those people that I like being in my stories." 

                   Schiebel and the rest of the "Frankenstein" company have
                   become friends; it's a bonding process that began with the
                   first read-through and was cemented the night the first
                   audience got a look at this convention-defying production. 

                   "I think that with this group, and with Lauren, we just
                   thought if they don't get it, they don't get it," Schiebel says.
                   "We're just going to do our best to tell the story." 

                   Schiebel and the rest of the cast hope to be on hand for the
                   Hippodrome's Halloween Ball Saturday night, which will
                   take up most of the Sun Center with a costume contest and
                   general merriment. House of Dreams (which includes
                   "Frankenstein" musical director Douglas Maxwell) will
                   perform at the event, which is a benefit for the theater.