World theatre and literature are redolent with pieces that are forever going around the traps in one guise or another. Robin Hood, Sherlock Holmes, 1984, anything by Jane Austen and The Lord of the Rings. They are rich in character and insight and can happily withstand extreme and, on occasions, semi-destructive treatments.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is one of them. This one-hour exploration of the classic theme is brought to the minimalist BATS Stage by performer Calvin Petersen and director Alessandro Visentin as co-creators (significant title given the context). An earnest young fellow “finds an abandoned journal in a dark seemingly empty room” and lucks into the authentic lab papers of one Dr Victor Frankenstein.

Now, that’s tailor-made for the BATS treatment noted for its almost empty spaces that challenge human actors to fill them with ideas rather than sets, big lights and props. I have long been a huge admirer of that theatrical commando approach.

The room we are in (before the narrator seemingly ‘breaks into it’ in a suppressed heavy breathing frenzy) contains a white shadow screen at the back, two chairs with a plank, an overhead projector and two (quite small) reading lamps. Tiny hand-held red/white lights complete the inventory.   

This is a brave one-man journey through (and around) a scientific experiment that lay on the lonely frontier between perverse human knowledge and a sacrilegious elevation of man to the level of his wildly accepted creator; an error of judgment that produced horrifically damaging downsides. In short, God was vindicated as being more skilful. Man was simply doing witless brain surgery using a tin opener from the $2 shop.

It was considered a repellent tale that caused societal fright in its day. Since then, we have had the far more respectable transplant revolution in medicine that makes us more accepting of medical hubris. Our young explorer has, indeed, to go down the path of garnering cadavers from disreputable places. His face contorts in garish self-administered hues (he’s his own lighting man – when audience members aren’t doing it for him). Our lad is taken with the notion of not only replicating the bodily results of Dr F – he actually wants to vastly improve on them. He aspires to doing things that the Family Court (Monsters Division) would surely approve of.

By co-opting the audience, as he requires, he skilfully introduces this non-horrific and more kindly dimension. He blends his own ‘monster’ into polite society in the Young Frankenstein tradition. In doing so, he tells a somewhat zany and, at times, semi-incoherent tale that reminds me of Voltaire’s Candide for its outrageous improbability but central insight. The sort of jolly tale that goes, “God sent a terrible storm to wash us to the sea, but we had a small umbrella with us – so we were saved.” And, with that amazing leap approach on your side, it’s amazing what you can create with two chairs and a short plank.

I have glowing recall of many of the stage effects brought to us by this shambolic but deceptively clever production. Rather than produce a human-sized mannequin of ‘the humanoid monster’, our hero uses throwaway plastic prostheses and convincingly attaches them to himself whilst illuminating the transformation with his portable garish lights. When the creature comes alive, it is only its upper torso illuminated bright red from within. It is lovingly held up and draws the audience along. It invites unexpected empathy. It most certainly does not repel.

In a frantic Chaplinesque search for the creature on the move across frozen wasteland (via the Orkneys!) the chairs and a white sheet become a credible snow-sled; drawn by two punters galloping on their knees at the edge of human endurance with our hero applying the metaphorical whip. As they say, if you have the courage of your acting conviction onstage the (remaining) audience will happily follow you over a cliff.

The Studio space is at the very topper-most point of Castle Bats. It fits perfectly the notion of madcap doings and bizarre carryings-on behind closed doors. It is suitably claustrophobic. It is neatly conducive to the overall theme. Leaving around 7.30pm gives me a sense of escape from a darkly unusual but far from alien space.

It is still light and the many massive cars, brutal concrete buildings and exploitative clip joints seem to convey a disconcerting sense of madness. It lacks the serendipitous humanity of what I had just seen.

On further reflection I have come to the tentative realisation that our present-day world comes with its own botched horrors with few compensating factors. The turning of a wig and a bottle of orange liquid into what now has to be accepted as the President of the USA. The airily announced pending destruction of London in just 8 minutes by the new Stalin. The gunning down of innocent people on a quiet Sunday at the beach. It all helps in recasting Frankenstein as some sort of latter-day bromance. That and the fervently sincere applause at the conclusion of the opening night.

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