Frankenstein is about to return to life in a large-scale and electrifying theatrical event from shake and stir theatre co, updating Mary Shelley’s monstrous tale about creation and the meaning of humanity.
shake & stir co-artistic director Nick Skubij, also the director of Frankenstein, is excited to bring the dark literary classic – widely regarded as the first piece of science fiction – into the modern era at QPAC’s Playhouse.
“It’s very much in keeping with our interest in Gothic fiction, and in dark and interesting work where the location of those Gothic pieces is really interesting to realise on stage,” Skubij says. “It’s such a huge sweeping story. It sweeps across multiple locations. It’s a beast. We’re literally creating a monster as we put it all together.”
Skubij is stunned by how the themes of a work created in 1818 are still so relevant to present-day dilemmas.
“These real legacy bits of fiction that have been around for hundreds of years – it’s incredible how they still feel so contemporary,” he says. “It speaks to so many things – feminism, religion, the Industrial Revolution. This production, without being slavish to any era or period, is certainly set at the precipice of great change.
“We’re seeing that today with advances in AI. Frankenstein spoke to the time that the story was written, when farmers’ machinery went from being handcrafted in an artisan world to the mass replication of things.
“And suddenly there was this great immense output of productivity, which made people rich. It took jobs away from people. It significantly shifted the way people lived. It does feel in many ways with AI happening now that we’re seeing similar conversations.”
Skubij is enjoying using modern iterations of the threat of technology, such as video and automation, to explore the broader issues of the consequences of playing God.
“It’s technology that is simultaneously exciting and threatening to some,” he says. “We don’t quite understand it and there’s great power to it and there’s great opportunity for bad things to come of it. So the consequences of decisions speaks to ambition. It speaks to advancement and bettering society, and the great personal needs and desires of the characters when they overtake themselves, getting a little bit carried away and not thinking before you act.
“Creating something that supersedes yourself – the creator is superseded by the ability of its creation – and how that can get out of hand and suddenly you’re in this snowball effect. It’s crazy how it’s so relevant today.
“So we’ve got this great ability to be able to shift perspective throughout the piece and hopefully the audience is left guessing. Even if they have read the book many times and they’re intimately familiar with it, hopefully they’re seeing it through a different viewpoint that they may not have considered.”
Frankenstein comes at the end of a big year for shake and stir, having just finished the world premiere Brisbane Festival production of Tae Tae in the Land of Yaaaas!!, and a six-month national tour of Roald Dahl’s The Twits.
“This is actually the first time in about six or seven months that there has just been the one shake and stir show in creation, which is really exciting,” Skubij says. “It’s not going to last long because then we go straight into A Christmas Carol, which returns to Brisbane after a year-long break.
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“So it really is all systems go at the moment, but it’s nice to have everything clearing the way for the giant ship that is Frankenstein coming towards us at a rapid speed.
“It’s lovely when we create new work in our home town and premiere that work in Brisbane. Who knows the future, but I’m sure it’ll have a life beyond this. Frankenstein is something that hopefully audiences haven’t seen before, in terms of the interpretation as well as the scale and the whole sheer spectacle of it all. But more importantly, the story and the humanity and the truth behind it.”
Frankenstein will jolt into QPAC’s Playhouse, October 14-28
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