Algonquin’s Frankenstein brings off some powerful visuals.
Photo credit: Andrew Alexander. He’s a grotesque, man-made creature on a rampage of anger and violence — and ultimately murder. But you also sense that he has a soul — of sorts. So you can’t deny his anguish of spirit, his suffering, his feelings of desolation and abandonment as he wanders through a hostile terrain in a poignant search for his maker.
That terrain is as much metaphysical and spiritual as it is horrifying, and this is one of the strengths of Frankenstein: The Man Who Became God, the play that the Algonquin College theatre program has bravely decided to mount.
This is not the Frankenstein of actor Boris Karloff and director James Whale, although their 80-year-old movies continue to have the greatest impact on the popular imagination. This stage piece by Alden Nowlan and Walter Learning is far truer to the purpose of Mary Shelley, the author of the original book, but beyond that, you find it carries its own special resonance.