PLAYING WITH FIRE (AFTER FRANKENSTEIN)

by Field, Barbara

Adapted from Mary Shelley’s novel, the play deals with the events which transpire after those usually associated with the Frankenstein story - in this case the final, fateful meeting between Dr. Frankenstein and his creation amidst the barren wastes of the North Pole. As the play begins, an exhausted and dying Victor Frankenstein has finally tracked down his Creature in the frozen tundra. Determined to right the wrong he has committed by at last destroying the evil he believes he has created, Frankenstein finds that he must first deal with his own guilt and responsibility - for, as their fascinating confrontation develops, it is evident that the Creature has become a pathetic, lonely and even sensitive being who wants to find only love and that he, Frankenstein, by intruding into the very secrets of life, is truly the evil one. As the two debate, scenes from the past flash by: the doctor’s young bride who the Creature killed when the scientist failed to provide him with a mate of his own; the brilliantly quick-witted Professor Krempe, Frankenstein’s mentor; and moments between the youthful Victor and his brother, who also fell victim to the Creature’s vengeance. The exchange between the two becomes a confrontation between parent and child, scientist and experiment, rejection and love, even between good and evil, culminating in the Creature’s agonising question: “Why did you make me?” It is a question the exhausted Frankenstein can’t answer, and as the play ends the Monster lives on, condemned to pass his remaining days in the awful loneliness he has so desperately sought to escape.