******207-YEAR OLD SPOILERS!******

Young 19th century author Mary Shelley’s groundbreaking 1818 novel “Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus,” famously fused gothic horror with elements of science fiction. It’s since been adapted into various mediums, including stage plays and films. The most popular of these adaptations were the loosely-adapted Universal Monster movies of the 1930s-1940s, three of which starred the legendary Boris Karloff. A more recent movie adaptation from 1994 was directed by star Kenneth Branagh, who rose to prominence making faithful film adaptations of William Shakespeare’s plays (his 1996 version of “Hamlet” is phenomenal).

It’s Shelley’s novel and elements of the Branagh film that bring me to the subject of this review; a full-on ballet of “Frankenstein,” with choreography by Liam Scarlett and a score by composer Lowell Liebermann (who’d previously adapted Oscar Wilde’s gothic horror novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” into a 2007 opera). My wife and I were happy ticket holders for this well-timed Halloween season performance of “Frankenstein” from the prestigious San Francisco Ballet, who first collaborated with the Royal Ballet to debut this show in London back in 2016. The ballet was presented at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, California (a downright cavernous venue), running from October 2nd to the 5th. Luckily, we caught a matinee performance on the show’s final day, October 5th.

My wife half-joked that she was there for the ballet while I was there for the horror, though she knows I’m a fan of opera and ballet too, with a real passion for classical music. In my early teens, I used to go with my family to watch free summer performances of ballet, opera, musicals and classical concerts at the Redlands Bowl in Redlands, California. Those music-filled summers under the stars exposed my sci-fi/horror-addled brain to the classics, and richly augmented my musical tastes forever.

So this San Francisco Ballet production of “Frankenstein” seemed tailor-made for both of us.

Act I

Told entirely in dance without any dialogue/exposition, the ballet begins as the Frankenstein family takes in young orphan Elizabeth Lavenza, who collapses ill at their doorstep. In the years that follow, Elizabeth (Sasha De Sola) and Victor Frankenstein (Max Cauthorn) develop a strong bond that eventually blossoms into love as they get older. The family then suffers a terrible loss when Victor’s mother (Elizabeth Mateer) dies in childbirth of his younger brother, William (Oliver Gurrea). This tragedy compels Victor to attend medical school, with the audacious goal of defying death itself. This obsession puts him at odds with the medical establishment, and alienates him from Elizabeth and his friend Henry (Simone Pompignori). Victor’s fixation soon takes a much darker turn, as he steals parts from various cadavers to stitch together and reanimate a man of his own making–a scarred, deformed, yet powerful Creature (Joshua Jack Price) which Victor immediately abandons in fear.

Note: Despite my earlier uncertainties, the choreography and dancers deftly related Mary Shelley’s text-heavy story in perfect pantomime, with each beat of the story made perfectly clear without dialogue or exposition of any kind.

Note: The reanimation sequence employs the production’s full range of effects, including sparking, smoking lab equipment (using live pyrotechnics), front-projected electrical arcs, and other clever stagecraft. The musical score by Lowell Libermann, played by a live orchestra and conducted by Martin West, is suitably dramatic and stayed in my head hours after hearing it (I need to find a physical media soundtrack). A thin layer of scrim was occasionally draped in front of the stage to convey storms, fog and other effects throughout the show as well.

Note: This photo appears to be taken from a performance with Victor being played by Fernando Carratalá Coloma and the Creature being played by Wei Wang. These aren’t the actors I saw during the Sunday matinee my wife and I attended, as dancers rotate due to the heavy physical demands of the ballet.

Act II

Act II jumps several years ahead, with Victor returning to Elizabeth, yet unable to share with her his guilt over the abomination he created. Meanwhile, the Creature learns to survive on its own and even learns to read. Discovering Victor’s notebook in the coat pocket of Victor’s stolen jacket, the Creature reads of its own creation and of his creator; Victor Frankenstein. He then seeks out his creator, stalking him at his family manor. During a game of blind man’s bluff, a blindfolded William unwittingly befriends the Creature. When the blindfold is removed, the boy reacts in terror, causing the panicked Creature to kill the boy. The Creature then frames the child’s governess (Julia Rowe) for the murder, resulting in her execution by an angry mob. Confronting a grieving Victor alone, the Creature gives his creator an ultimatum; make a companion for him, or he will seek revenge on Victor’s wedding night…

Note: This photo of the Creature learning to read features Joshua Jack Price in the role, who played the part during the performance we saw. The unique face and jawline are unmistakable, and through his performance, we see his character’s gradual evolution from lumbering, childlike being to powerful, angry adolescent–seeking revenge on his creator for rejecting him and forcing him to fend for himself.

Note: Once again, this photo appears to be from a performance featuring Coloma in the role of Victor, with possibly Caven Conley in the role of the Creature. The choreography and staging seem more or less identical to the performance I saw, though I’m curious what the differences were in each dancer’s interpretation. As someone who once dabbled in community theater decades ago (in my wild youth), this is an aspect of live performance that I appreciate over movies; each performance is unique.

Note: Before each act began, there was a subtly-animated skull in profile (with disappearing/reappearing medical notations) projected onto a layer of scrim separating the audience from the darkened stage. Between the second and third acts, the skull–half-covered in muscle–turned to face the audience and open it single, staring blue eye…

Act III

The shortest of the three acts, Act III opens with the dance at Victor and Elizabeth’s wedding, with a paranoid, distracted Victor seeing the Creature wherever he looks. Victor’s father (Ricardo Bustamente) is soon found dead. In the ensuing panic, the Creature kills Victor’s friend Henry, and makes unwanted advances toward Elizabeth, whom he then kills as Victor arrives. Unable to cope with the pain and loss he’s caused, Victor then turns a pistol on himself and takes his own life. Resigned to face a life alone, the remorseful Creature gently cradles his dead creator before walking towards the flames of a burning Frankenstein manor–choosing self-immolation over a life of alienation.

Note: I have to confess my own immaturity. As the ballet progressed, and the Creature’s dancing lumbered into eventual grace, I had occasional inappropriate flashbacks to Peter Boyle’s tap-dancing routine with Gene Wilder in Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein” (1974); one of my all-time favorite comedies.

Note: The nude Creature walking into the flames was heavily metaphoric, as both he and his creator are doomed to seemingly ‘burn in hellfire’ for their transgressions. The Frankenstein manor fire was a combination of front projection and lighting effects that gave the climax a Dante’s Inferno vibe.

The End.

Curtain Call and Standing Ovation

Unable to take photos or videos during the performance (of course), I stymied my shutterbugging impulse until the curtain call and standing ovation, where the dancers (actors by any other name) and conductor came to the stage in waves to receive their much-deserved admiration. Between acts, I also snuck a pic from the orchestra pit as well.

Summing It Up

Going in to see the San Francisco Ballet performance of “Frankenstein,” I experienced a tiny bit of hesitance, since Mary Shelley’s novel is a classic of gothic literature. So imagining it entirely in dance–without any dialogue or exposition–seemed a daunting challenge, to say the least. However, the San Francisco Ballet’s troupe of talented dancers, working with choreographer Liam Scarlett and composer Lowell Libermann’s dynamic musical score, have willed this unwieldy-sounding idea to life–much like Victor Frankenstein. However, instead of creating a monster, they created a thing of dark beauty.

The Creature of this ballet (like Boris Karloff and most interpretations since) is presented as a misunderstood child who enters an angry adolescence when shunned by everyone, including his creator. The Creature’s makeup and body suit for this production are clearly inspired by Kenneth Branagh’s faithful 1994 movie “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,” as are other elements of this version, though it wisely ditched Shelley’s North Pole expedition framing story (which would be difficult to stage and entirely unnecessary for this version). Unlike Branagh’s film however, this version doesn’t have the luxury of spoken dialogue or even text titles, yet information is clearly and vividly conveyed through the dancers’ body language, movements and facial expressions. I often found myself mistakenly referring to the dancers as actors, because their performances represent acting at its core.

I would recommend seeing this version if it ever tours in a nearby city, or if it comes to Amazon’s Marquee TV someday. And, of course, if you ever have a chance to see it in October, the San Francisco Ballet’s production of “Frankenstein” makes for a wonderfully gothic Halloween treat.