The Modern Prometheus

LIFE SCIENCE Robbel, left, and Tom McGrath wait for lightning to strike.

If you’re, say, an opponent of stem-cell research, you probably read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a cautionary tale about the limits of science and the evils of playing God. Lawrence (who wrote RBP’s Chalk in 2007) puts the opposite spin on his engaging riff: Here, science is the benevolent force, religion the stifling self-interest. In The Modern Prometheus (the name comes from Shelley’s subtitle), Victor Frankenstein is an obsessive, occasionally unethical, essentially noble man who, after the failed experiment that produces his Creature, eventually succeeds in harnessing the spark of life; he discovers the secret to not just reanimating the dead but restoring life. This particular miracle presents a big problem for the church.

Lawrence puts Frankenstein’s fiancée, Elizabeth, at the play’s center, making her the target for the ministrations of some and the lewd attentions of others. Even if the playwright does shift the action from Shelley’s 1818 to 1871—the politics of the waning Franco-Prussian War play a part in Lawrence’s take—Elizabeth seems a bit too much of a modern woman, though Erin Elizabeth Orr sells the role. Colby Sellers gives a physically impressive, emotionally nuanced performance as Frankenstein’s botched creation, and Robbel and Marcotte’s bare-walled black-box staging is inventive and well paced. Robbel’s turn as the good doctor is slightly less successful; his Victor is almost stiff enough to be mistaken for his creation.

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