Lafayette – With 72 local theater productions opening in a 51-day span, companies large and small want to know just what they have to do to get a little attention. Not everyone can be like the Curious Theatre and commission “The War Anthology,” eight new ruminations by an all-star lineup of writers that includes, oh, three Pulitzer winners.
Or can they?
Community theaters will get plenty of attention if they follow the example of the Theater Company of Lafayette. Its “The Frankenstein Experiment,” three years in the making, exemplifies community theater at its most relevant.
Artistic director Madge Montgomery commissioned 12 short, contemporary new playlets loosely inspired by Mary Shelley’s 188-year-old gothic novel. The stories are divided into groups of six that are performed in repertory.
This massive undertaking is reflected not only in the wonderful double-entendre of the title, but shows its commitment to new work, local writers and most nobly to community itself. The project coincides with a traveling national library exhibit called “Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature,” on simultaneous display in the Lafayette Public Library.
It’s not like TCL had a ton of money at its disposal. Montgomery allocated $5,000 to the project (the writers each earned $125), but that constitutes one-third of her entire annual budget. That makes this project one daring leap of faith.
What results onstage is something of a hodgepodge, and too little, frankly, offers useful new insight into the Frankenstein story. But that’s really secondary to the thrill of the event itself. All told, Montgomery has rallied 12 writers, six directors and 32 actors of all experience levels. Together they jolt life into new work, not to mention seven Frankenstein creatures.
The roster includes its share of notable names – director Billie McBride; playwrights Edith Weiss and Colorado Daily entertainment editor Brad Weismann; actors Josh Hartwell, Tim Englert and Ellen Ranson – but the overriding spirit of this whole affair is ensemble collaboration, with the audience doing its part by simply being there.
I attended the program subtitled “Fire and Ice,” a varied slate that tilts toward comedy and even vaudevillian absurdism. Above all, it simply reinforced just how deeply the Frankenstein story remains embedded in our pop-culture, political and scientific debates.
The creature, writer David Golden aptly observes, remains our primary metaphor for any new medical development that some see as morally dangerous. This symbol of the ostracized monster is also easily applied today to the homeless, the disabled or any other discriminated, undervalued or discarded segment of our society.
But the buzz was all about the companion program titled “Promise and Peril,” with strong word of mouth for “Hoping to See God,” in which Weiss imagines the doctor and his monster’s power for forgiveness in the afterlife, and Steve Rasnic Tem’s “A Hideous Idea,” about parents (played by Ranson and Englert) wrestling with a son’s death sentence. If you must choose one program, target “Promise and Peril.”
From a cutthroat critical perspective, Montgomery and her audiences would have been better off had she commissioned her 12 plays but then selected the best six for one performance. Too much of what made the final cut is underdeveloped or ideologically muddled, the company talent pool too thin to truly warrant this double bill.
But while that would have produced a far better and more cohesive final product, it also would have reduced the sweep of what has been accomplished here by a bold little company that has put the “community” back into “community theater.”
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-820-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
** 1/2 | “The Frankenstein Experiment”
SHORT PLAYS|Theater Company of Lafayette|12 works inspired by Mary Shelley’s novel are divided into groups of six and performed in repertory|300 E. Simpson St.|THROUGH FEB. 3|7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays|2 hours|$10 ($15 for both)|720-209-2154 or tclstage.org
