Theatre performance sophomore Diego Sifuentes, as Kenning, The Constable and The Priest, and theatre performance senior Gerard Scot Johnson, as the Creature, rehearse last Tuesday for the UTRGV Theatre Department’s production of “Frankenstein.” RAMIRO CASTRO JR./THE RIDER PHOTOS
The UTRGV Theatre Department’s production of “Frankenstein” is not just the typical Halloween play. It also explores life, death, identity and what it means to be human.
Directed by theatre Associate Professor Brian Warren, the play will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday in the Albert L. Jeffers Theatre on the Edinburg campus.
The play is based on the novel by Mary Shelley and adapted by Joshua Kennedy and Marco Muñoz.
“Reading the novel is always good,” Warren said. “It’s a classic for a reason, what it says about … humanity, and why we do what we do. … I found this play by knowing my friend, Joshua Kennedy … and I liked his version that we’re doing.”
Kennedy, an English graduate student playing Victor Frankenstein, told The Rider he thinks his adaptation is “pretty faithful” to the novel.
“We get rid of a lot of the … stuff that I consider boring and … I think fans of the book will appreciate how faithful it is,” he said.
Kennedy said some of the humor that is not in the book will be in the play and pays tribute to certain films of “Frankenstein” that have come before.
“I’ve been waiting to do this since I was 4 years old,” he said. “When I was 4, I saw ‘Young Frankenstein’ with Gene Wilder. … So, I’ve been waiting all of my life to play this. … I can’t help but get into character when I have such an awesome creature screaming and throwing himself around and such a great cast.”
Theatre performance senior Gerard Scot Johnson, who plays the Creature, told The Rider the show has a perfect balance.
“You will laugh and cry,” he said. “It’s a story between a father and a son. It’s a story about neglect, abandonment and hope.”
In his second season performing with the Theatre Department, Johnson said he finds his character development interesting as he goes from a position of narrating when he is a master of his body to the earlier stages of the Creature’s being.
Victoria Pope, an educational leadership graduate student, is portraying two characters in the play, the Creature’s Bride and the mother of Frankenstein.
“The mother, she comes out, and she’s a ghost,” Pope said. “So, I kind of have to, you know, separate myself, my humanity, and just kind of turn into this sort of floating figure that is kind of shaming my son … and making him feel guilty. … And the bride is just really stepping out of that humanity and becoming this lifeless entity that is created from bits and pieces of other people.”
She said playing the bride has a lot of focus on making faces, sounds and “creeping [herself] out.”
Warren said attendees will also see a lot of added technical elements.
“We have a lot of multimedia effects, like projections. … That’ll help, you know, how most people are used to movies,” he said. “Well, this is like a movie effect that we are going to use.”
Tickets are $15 for general admission, $10 for senior citizens and veterans, and $5 for faculty, staff and students with a UTRGV ID. Tickets will be sold at the box office one hour before showtime.
