frankenstein, by r.n sandberg
I read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein during a particularly lonely stretch of quarantine. I was quickly absorbed by the world, the characters, and, especially, the atmosphere. The passages written from the Creature's perspective, as he learns about humanity from a distance, remain some of my favorite sections in any book, ever.
Tasked with translating the world of the book to the stage, I took a field-trip to the Internation Museum of Surgical Science. Hidden amongst the rusty razors and dried gallstones, I stumbled accross a scale model of a 13th century operating theatre located at the University of Padua.
I had never thought deeply about the fact that the room where surgeries happen is called a "theatre." However, as I dug into the context surrounding the model, I found myself inspired by the macabre history of public surgery and dissection.
I decided that our production would try to adopt some of the conventions of a public dissection (ritualistic cleansing of the space, an audience that sits above the stage, participants costumed in scrubs, etc). The performance presented itself as a public autopsy of Victor Frankenstein, an exploration of his death, as well as the way that he lived.
production photos
soundtrack
Once again, I composed the music for the play while directing it. Inspired by the medical aesthetic of the play, a lot of the music uses samples of people playing instruments during surgery, or sounds from the operating room.