Innocents are being murdered in the basement of La Val’s. Necks snap, vertebrae uncouple, a victim convulses across the floor, but as for bodily fluids, there are none — health inspector, pass by!
Alas, it’s only Berkeley-based Theatre Lunatico’s production of “Frankenstein,” playing through Nov. 2 in La Val’s Subterranean theatre. While it’s not a theater in the traditional sense, this 60-seat venue beneath Berkeley’s oldest pizza shop features low ceilings, industrial pipes and light fixtures foggy with aerosolized grease; the grimy atmosphere is just right for a little gothic horror.
Emphasis on “little.” Playwright Tina Taylor has condensed Mary Shelley’s novel into a crisp 90-minute drama, suitable for the small basement, which director Lauri Smith partitions into a four-by-four grid. The audience sits in two opposing squares, and the drama unfolds on the other two, forming an hourglass-shaped performance space with a narrow neck for the actors to squeeze through. It’s hard not to be a part of the action. So when the ship’s captain screams that ice surrounds us in “every direction, port, stern, starboard, bow,” we can only grip our seats and wait for the seawater to start flooding in.
To that point, it’s easy to forget that the frame narrative of “Frankenstein” unfolds aboard a ship. Captain Robert (Liam Blaney), en route to the Arctic, rescues a haggard man from atop an iceberg. The stranger immediately collars the captain for a long, bizarre explanation of just what in the world he’s doing there. Turns out, he’s lost a monster. Anyone seen it?
The rest of the show reenacts the backstory. Tyler Aguallo gives us a wiry, frantic Victor Frankenstein, brimming with ideas about the origin and the meaning of life. Think of him as the next spiffy young prophet of the technocracy: “Consciousness!” he shouts at his friend Henry Clerval (also Liam Blaney), explaining why he wants to solve the scientific mystery of life. From life springs mind, and from mind springs soul. Of souls, it’s not clear that Victor has one. As he makes his plans, his mother (Jennifer Green) cries out for him from her deathbed. Where could that boy have gone off to? Don’t worry, Mom, he’s just building a monster.
This question — “Where has Victor gone off to?” — is the mainspring of the show’s narrative interest, since whenever he’s out of sight we know he’s pursuing some illicit activity. Grave robbery, anyone? His wife, Elizabeth (Sarah Jiang), tolerates the chaos to the extent that it, apparently, turns her on. She tends house in a glorified negligee, costumed by Elana Swartz, and only gets really upset with Victor’s experimentation when he stops coming to bed.
The solution to the problem of creating life is obvious, as are Victor’s reasons for not taking the easy route. As my grandfather liked to say, “Only God can make a tree, but any fool can make a baby,” and Victor does not identify as a fool.
But it’s actor Sam Heft-Luthy who truly brings Victor’s creation to life. Heft-Luthy only has two modes: innocent and sinister — though the binary quality of his performance makes sense for a creature who activates at the switch of an electrical breaker and whose neurons you can practically hear firing as he twitches around the stage.
He also tends to lurk. For me, this came to a horrifying zenith when I happened to glance at the column beside me at the same moment he popped out from behind it.
In fact, in Smith’s staging, members of the ensemble often creep to random corners of the room to watch the action unfold. If you have the feeling that there’s somebody behind you, there probably is.
The overall effect is a sticky, mildly invasive sensory overwhelm, the theatrical equivalent of ASMR, and with the same weird appeal. When the monster snaps someone’s neck, the actors make bone-crunching sounds with their mouths. Asphyxiation? This group can hack. All the while, a pizza-scented fog drifts around the room like a little Italian ghost, making you salivate while you watch these crimes unfold.
So far as most of us don’t like our “yum” and our “yuck” too close together, “Frankenstein” is an uncomfortable sensory experience. But it is, undeniably, an experience, and one that must be had.
“Frankenstein” runs in La Val’s Subterranean through Nov. 2. Tickets are available at https://theatrelunatico.wordpress.com/ or, if you prefer to keep it old school, at the door.