Frankenstein: A Cabaret
This event is in the past
Wed., Sept. 28, 8 p.m., Thu., Sept. 29, 8 p.m., Fri., Sept. 30, 10 p.m., Sat., Oct. 1, 8 p.m. and Sun., Oct. 2, 2 p.m. 2016
Clinton Street Theater
Hosford-Abernethy (Portland)
$15 - $20
First seen at the Fertile Ground Festival, Frankenstein: A Cabaret is everything I want in a play: It’s creepy, it’s weird, and it explores themes of gender and sexuality by adapting a well-known piece of literature with an almost exclusively female cast. Plus musical theatre. There’s a lot going on: a six-piece band onstage, some of whom were also actors; a full cast and storyline; a group of three dancers performing in most scenes; a chorus narrating between numbers; and not one but two Monsters (for reasons that remain unclear to me). There was a dance number with neon rope lights and mirrors on a pitch-black stage. On their own, each of these things would have been pretty great (and they were), but the sum of the play's parts felt complex and hard to follow. AMELIA AYRELAN IUVINO