Jason Stevens is welcoming this year’s Halloween season by haunting the Craigdarroch Castle in a one-man production of Frankenstein. This will be Stevens’ third year producing and portraying 10 different characters from Mary Shelley’s classic novel.
Stevens says that although it’s a popular story, on-screen portrayals have slightly clouded the audience’s understanding of the play.
“It’s a gothic classic, it’s interesting,” says Stevens. “Also, everyone thinks they know the story, but people are overwhelmingly surprised because they’re basing their idea of Frankenstein on the 1930s movie, which is not the same at all, it’s completely different. He [Dr. Frankenstein] doesn’t say, ‘It’s alive!’ That doesn’t happen.”
When comparing The Monster and Dr. Frankenstein, Stevens holds sympathy for The Monster, and explains that, in the Doctor’s case, monsters are created.
“The Monster doesn’t even have the dignity of a name; it’s just The Monster. He is an object and he’s lonely and miserable and he’s intelligent and he’s sensitive,” says Stevens. “He is a monster, but monsters are made. People in the world now are talking now about how ‘Putin is a monster’; he’s not, he’s a human being who is doing monstrous things, right? You have to look into the broader context of actually pinning responsibility, because anyone would be a monster if you create the right circumstances.”
Stevens believes that there are many reasons audiences still resonate with a novel written in the early 1800s.
“It’s a timeless science-fiction tragedy. The thing that makes you great is often the thing that makes you flawed and destroys you; I mean, that’s as old as the hills. And no one has really done a better story than Frankenstein like that, I don’t think,” he says.
Performing a one-man play sounds like no easy feat, but Stevens explains he’s able to connect with the audience, and genuinely has fun doing it.
“The only thing that matters is that the story happens for me,” he says. “If it’s an experience I’m having and I’m there and I’m with it and I’m sort of entertaining myself, then it’s going to be watchable for everyone else. That’s the thing—you just have to get lost in it and then it tends to work. There’s usually a little wind-up period for the first few minutes, people are like, ‘What the hell is this? Is it just going to be this guy talking to us?’ And then they get carried along with it.”
Stevens feels that there is a bigger message to be taken away from the story. He observes that a lot of the themes in Frankenstein parallel modern society when it comes to technological advancements, as well as the consequences that comes along with them.
“As technology moves at a faster clip and becomes much more a part of our lives we have to adapt, and it’s definitely something that’s noticeable—you can feel it,” he says. “We have these phones now, they’re so great, but are they? What are the negative consequences? Are we better off or are we more socially isolated? When we release these things onto the world, we can’t really anticipate what the consequences are going to be.”
Frankenstein
Various dates, until Saturday, October 29
$30, Craigdarroch Castle
thecastle.ca