The Call Is Places 2018–2019 SUBSCRIBER NEWSLETTER Frankenstein – Playing with Fire Sept 15 – Oct 27 Wurtele Thrust Stage WELCOME From Artistic Director Joseph Haj SEASON 2018–2019 Frankenstein – Playing with Fire Sept 15 – Oct 27, 2018 Dear Friends, Wurtele Thrust Stage The idea for Frankenstein came to 18-year-old Mary Shelley in a dream. Noises Off After reading a volume of ghost stories with Percy Shelley and Lord Byron Oct 27 – Dec 16, 2018 and attempting to pen ghastly tales of their own, Mary awoke one night McGuire Proscenium Stage from a chilling vision of a scientist bringing a “hideous phantasm of a man” to life. That striking image was the impetus for her novel, which was A Christmas Carol published in 1818 and kept alive through stage and film adaptations for Nov 13 – Dec 29, 2018 the past 200 years. Wurtele Thrust Stage But her ghost-story-turned-cultural-phenomenon isn’t the only notable The Great Leap anniversary. We’re also heralding the 30th anniversary of Barbara Field’s Jan 12 – Feb 10, 2019 McGuire Proscenium Stage haunting Frankenstein – Playing with Fire script. This brilliant adaptation was commissioned by the Guthrie under the artistic direction of the late As You Like It Garland Wright and opened in July 1988 following a five-month national Feb 9 – March 17, 2019 tour. Barbara’s work and artistry are woven into the fabric of the Guthrie’s Wurtele Thrust Stage history, and I’m thrilled to once again examine the questions Mary Shelley raised two centuries ago. Cyrano de Bergerac The riveting and deeply personal catechism between Frankenstein and March 16 – May 5, 2019 his Creature draws us in from the first question — “Do you dream?” — and McGuire Proscenium Stage never lets us go. What follows is an examination of the ethical limits of science and an intense grappling with the age-old quandary: Just because Metamorphoses we can do something, does it mean we should? April 13 – May 19, 2019 Wurtele Thrust Stage Thank you for joining us at the top of the 2018–2019 Season — our 56th and counting. I hope you enjoy the show and return to experience more Guys and Dolls incredible stories on our stages. June 22 – Aug 25, 2019 Wurtele Thrust Stage Floyd’s Yours, July 27 – Aug 25, 2019 McGuire Proscenium Stage Visit guthrietheater.org for additional productions and play descriptions. 2 \ GUTHRIE THEATER PHOTO: JOSEPH HAJ (KERI PICKETT) Frankenstein – Playing with Fire by Barbara Field (from the novel by Mary Shelley) The Guthrie gratefully recognizes Cast Steve Thompson & Ron Frey and in alphabetical order Kendrick B. Melrose as Executive Producers; Patricia & Peter Kitchak CREATURE and Louise W. Otten as Producers; Elijah Alexander* and Tyrone & Delia Bujold as VICTOR Ryan Colbert* Associate Producers. KREMPE/OLD MAN Robert Dorfman* Setting FRANKENSTEIN Zachary Fine* The North Pole and various stops in a voyage of memory. It is the summer ELIZABETH Amelia Pedlow* solstice — the last day or the first day, ADAM Jason Rojas* depending on the point of view. Run Time Approximately 2 hours, 10 minutes with one intermission. Creative Team DIRECTOR Rob Melrose Understudies SCENIC DESIGNER Michael Locher China Brickey (Elizabeth), John Catron* (Victor/Adam), Steven Epp* COSTUME DESIGNER Raquel Barreto (Frankenstein/Krempe/Old Man), Jason Rojas* (Creature) LIGHTING DESIGNER Cat Tate Starmer Understudies never substitute for performers SOUND DESIGNER/COMPOSER unless announced prior to the performance. Cliff Caruthers DRAMATURG Carla Steen Acknowledgments RESIDENT VOICE COACH Jill Walmsley Zager Commissioned and originally produced by the Guthrie Theater and presented MOVEMENT DIRECTORS Jonathan Beller by special arrangement with Dramatists Beth Brooks Play Service, Inc., New York. FIGHT DIRECTOR Aaron Preusse Barbara Field wishes to acknowledge the dramaturgical expertise of Michael INTIMACY CONSULTANT Lauren Keating Lupu, whose assistance was invaluable STAGE MANAGERS Chris A. Code* when the play was written 30 years ago. Jamie J. Kranz* Delta Air Lines is the ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER Jane E. Heer* official airline of the Guthrie Theater. ASSISTANT DIRECTOR Tracey Maloney* NYC CASTING CONSULTANT McCorkle Casting, Ltd. DESIGN ASSISTANTS Ryan Connealy (lighting) Lisa Jones (costumes) Reid Rejsa (sound) *Member of Actors’ Equity Association 3 \ GUTHRIE THEATER THE PLAY “If an astonishing power were suddenly placed in your hands, what would you do with it?” – Victor to Krempe in Frankenstein – Playing with Fire Synopsis At the North Pole during the summer solstice, Frankenstein and his Creature meet after a years-long chase. Frankenstein wants to CHARACTERS avenge the destruction of his family; the Creature wants to avenge Frankenstein, a scientist his abandonment. Their temporary and wary truce takes the form of a question-and-answer catechism that encompasses topics people have Creature, Frankenstein’s wrestled with since God created Adam. As Frankenstein marvels at creation the achievements of his creation and the Creature demands answers Victor, a memory of from his creator, memories from their disparate pasts are conjured Frankenstein as a young man and entwined. Adam, a memory of the newly made Creature A young, ambitious Victor pursues knowledge and pushes the boundaries of science, ultimately creating and giving life to his Adam, Elizabeth, Victor’s betrothed whom he immediately rejects as a monster. Adam doesn’t know what Krempe, Victor’s professor it means to be a monster, but his painful education among humanity at Ingolstadt soon teaches him. Even though he is an outcast, he has an unbreakable Old Man, a memory from the connection to Victor that will forever test the bounds of love, Creature’s past responsibility, life and death. 4 \ GUTHRIE THEATER PHOTO: SCENIC DESIGN SKETCH BY MICHAEL LOCHER THE WRITERS Novelist Mary Shelley The only daughter of writers William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley was born in London on August 30, 1797. She married poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1816. Two years later, she anonymously published her most famous novel, Frankenstein. After her husband’s death in 1822, Shelley devoted herself to publicizing his writing, including Posthumous Poems (1824), Poetical Works (1839) and his prose works. In addition to Frankenstein, Shelley wrote six other novels, including Matilda (1959), Valperga (1823), The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck (1830), Lodore (1835) and Falkner (1837), as “ I busied myself to think of a story … One well as a novella, mythological dramas, stories and articles, which would speak to the mysterious fears of various travel books and biographical studies. The Last Man our nature and awaken thrilling horror — one (1826), an account of the future destruction of the human to make the reader dread to look round, to race by a plague, is often considered her best work. History curdle the blood and quicken the beatings of a Six Weeks’ Tour (1817) recounts the continental tour she of the heart. If I did not accomplish these and Percy took in 1814 following their elopement and summer things, my ghost story would be unworthy of spent near Geneva in 1816. its name.” In 1848, she began to suffer the first symptoms of a brain – Mary Shelley, on her hopes for writing the ghost tumor. She died in London on February 1, 1851, having asked to story that would become Frankenstein be buried with her mother and father. Her son and daughter- in-law had Shelley’s parents’ bodies exhumed and buried them together in the churchyard of St. Peter’s Bournemouth in England. Playwright Barbara Field Barbara Field has created work that has been seen across the United States, Canada and Europe. She served as playwright- in-residence at the Guthrie Theater from 1974 to 1981 and crafted a number of pieces, including translations and adaptations. Novel adaptations for the Guthrie include Camille by Alexandre Dumas and Frankenstein – Playing with Fire, a response to Mary Shelley’s novel. An adaptation of Great Expectations “ When [former Guthrie Artistic Director] commissioned by the Seattle Children’s Theatre later played Garland Wright asked me to create this at the Guthrie and traveled the country on an eight-month adaptation 30 years ago, I had never read tour. A revival of Great Expectations won a Los Angeles Drama Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I promptly read it Critics Circle Award. Her adaptation of A Christmas Carol has and told him I couldn’t do it. I thought she had been part of theater seasons for the Guthrie, Actors Theatre of a brilliant idea, but she wasn’t the greatest Louisville and Kansas City Repertory Theatre. writer. Then Garland asked, ‘What do you see?’ I told him I saw the dialogue Mary never wrote Field is a founding member of the Playwrights’ Center in between Victor and his Creature.” Minneapolis, and a book of seven of her plays, New Classics from the Guthrie Theater, was published in 2003 by Smith & – Barbara Field, on being commissioned by the Kraus. She is also the author of two anthologies: Collected Plays, Guthrie to write a play about Frankenstein Volume One (2008) and Collected Plays, Volume Two (2014). 5 \ GUTHRIE THEATER PHOTOS: MARY SHELLEY PORTRAIT BY RICHARD ROTHWELL; BARBARA FIELD (MIKE HABERMANN) CULTURAL CONTEXT From Frankenstein By Carla Steen to Franken Berry Dramaturg Victor Frankenstein and his Creature — two figments of Mary Shelley’s imagination — have transcended her fiction and spent 200 years taking on lives on their own. Dozens of stage versions and more than 100 films created narratives sometimes only tangentially connected to the novel Shelley called her “monstrous progeny.” Follow the story’s evolution from frivolous films to more faithful interpretations. 1818 Mary Shelley anonymously publishes Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. 1849 Frankenstein, or The Model Man plays in London — a Christmas pantomime with the Creature as a clown. 1831 Shelley revises the novel, which is published with illustrations by Theodor von Holst.