“The warp and weft of the piece may pull inspiration from the past but the work is completely original.
A demanding construct with wonderful performances.“
Kate Stratford
4 riffs on a theme
The Old Fitz
8 – 30 March 2024
Ten minutes into Emily Sheehan’s Frame Narrative, I am wondering if the inimitable director Lucy Clements has taken leave of her senses. Ah! I judge too soon. True to its title, there is a tale within a tale, and then a tale within that, and so the layers unravel to reveal a
very ambitious yarn which will, most likely, appeal more to industry insiders than a general audience.
The play riffs on the Frankenstein story, then riffs on the riff and then again until we are left with the perpetual questions in art and specifically, performance art. When should a writer let their creation go? How much should a director and actor be able to manipulate a writer’s work? How much is collaborative? What about the writer’s intent? How akin to creating art is having a child? And here come the unanswerable questions.
That this production works as well as it does can be attributed to the very ensemble nature of it. Led by Clements’ en point direction, the actors deliver precisely, confining excess of expression and gesture to the first narrative only. Megan O’Connell delivers a wonderfully nuanced performance as an auteur film-maker played by a 1990s horror film star Anna.
Centrally, Anna finds herself in conflict with the younger female star Estee (a delightfully poisonous Madeline Li) who is pandered to by director Margot (Jennifer Rani). Margot seems to make all the directorial mistakes possible by overtly favouring one actor over
another in an attempt to elicit the best possible performance from Anna. The charming Henrik (Charles Upton) is at his strongest when mansplaining to The Playwright who is in an advanced stage of pregnancy (a fragile, tortured Emma Wright) about the ownership of the
creature she has created.
There is much discussion of the text. The GenZ Estee reveals she has never read Frankenstein. Her “research” is confined to Googling her co-stars. She is going to the West-End after this to star in (wait a moment, she’ll remember the title in a minute, oh right, The Seagull directed by Simon someone-or-other and she hasn’t read it either). The text runs in spilt wine and only Anna cares. Arguments over words and phrases weave through the dialogue with finally, who should have the last say? Should a scene be cut? Ironically, The Playwright argues with the Director over his cutting of the last scene in her play, in a play which is – arguably – about ten minutes too long.
An antique gun upstage centre throws another refence to Chekov. A storm rages outside paying homage to the night Mary Shelly invented Frankenstein. It is a classic set of a panelled study with lighting sconces which flicker as the storm ebbs and flows. From moody auteur film set, to stage set, to working lights, the mood shifts as does the style. In the Old Fitz Theatre, designing effectively is a challenge. Soham Apte’s set and Spencer Herd’s lighting leave the audience in no doubt which frame of the embroidered narrative we are in.
Sam Cheng’s sound is equally effective in pulling together the threads of gothic horror, 90s cult film horror and schlock re-workings of the genre.
Sheehan’s characters and narrative frames reference various films as well as genre defining books and plays. It sits in the area of satirical critique of contemporary theatrical realism, seeking to be both innovative and ambitious. It juxtaposes the artist’s battle with the art through deconstructing the narrative; and whilst the influences and many metaphors are clear, it does not seem derivative. The warp and weft of the piece may pull inspiration from the past but the work is completely original.
A demanding construct with wonderful performances.
Kate Stratford, Theatre Now
