Frankenstein

Frankenstein

Written and directed by Emily Burns

Based on the novel by Mary Shelley

Shakespeare Theatre Company

Washington, D.C.

June 14, 2025

Reviewed by Melissa Lin Sturges

Thunder crackled as an explosive beam of lightning irradiated Dr. Frankenstein’s operating table. Contrasted by deep shadows, a human-sized entity stirred under flashes of strobe lights. The story is a familiar one: a tortured biologist, the monster he creates, and the family members sacrificed to his vanity. Shakespeare Theatre Company (STC)’s 2025 production of Frankenstein, newly adapted by playwright and director Emily Burns, rewrites Mary Shelley’s cautionary tale about personal responsibility for a new age. Weighing the burdens of responsibility against the privileges of familial love, Burns’s production recenters women’s voices often made unfamiliar to, but at the crux of, this classic 1818 novel. 

Shelley’s Frankenstein famously experiments with point of view: the novel begins from the epistolary perspective of arctic explorer Robert Walton, then transitions to the voice of Victor Frankenstein, and finally to that of the creature himself. The problem with first-person omniscience, however, is that it is notoriously untrustworthy—the tagline of STC’s production knowingly cautions its audiences to “trust him not.” Crucially, although the narrative is conveyed through dramatic dialogue, Burns’s adaptation centers on a character often overlooked in critical studies of Shelley’s work: that of Elizabeth Frankenstein (née Lavenza), Victor's adopted sister and later his fiancée.

With the help a talented design team that included scenic designer Andrew Boyce, costume designer Kaye Voyce, lighting designer Neil Austin, sound designer and composer André Pluess, and projection designer Elizabeth Barrett, the production recenters the righteous domesticity of Shelley’s age-old treatise on nature versus nurture. Staged in a traditional proscenium at The Klein Theatre in downtown Washington, DC, Burns’s direction was strikingly confrontational. Much of the production was original, with select dialog direct from Shelley’s novel projected above the stage. The entire production took place within the confines of a turn-of-the-nineteenth-century kitchen, with the operating table doubling as a dining table and complete with cast-iron ornaments and preserved vegetables. With deep recesses and floor-to-ceiling windows, the truncated locale demonstrates how the Frankenstein manor is haunted in more ways than one. 

Brooding but cavalier, Nick Westgate played Victor as a wily suitor to Elizabeth, always assuming the best of himself and the worst of her ignorance to the greater conflict at hand. As Elizabeth, Rebecca S'manga Frank forcefully navigated the male-centric narrative with undergirds of passion, warmth and charisma. Her character responds as anyone in a committed relationship with a monster might, yet Frank skillfully preserved Elizabeth’s values and sense of self-agency. Costumed in a series of elegant period gowns, Elizabeth’s confidence abounded. During the opening scene, her colorful, bodiced frock contrasted with Victor’s haphazard pajamas as he blindfolded himself to keep from “seeing the bride on her wedding day” — a foolish way to prove to Elizabeth he is not interested in true communication. 

Burns takes various liberties with Shelley’s text and in many ways challenges both the literal and thematic structure of the original narrative. She foremost deepens the familial bond between Victor and Elizabeth by including flashback scenes to their childhood, when grieving their mother’s death, and during their engagement. In doing so, it becomes easier to see how Victor’s scientific endeavors, his narcissism, and his prolonged absences negatively impacted Elizabeth’s coming of age.

As in the original novel, Victor returns from Ingolstadt to his home in Geneva horrified by the monster he has created. He arrives with plans to marry his fiancée of six years and assist with raising his younger brother, William. Meanwhile, his creature watches from a distance, observing the family's behaviors. When the creature murders William, a young caretaker and close family friend named Justine is falsely accused and executed for the crime. All of this rings true in Burns’ adaptation as well. Played by Anna Takayo, Justine delivers a devastating final monologue about believing she failed to love and care for William in the final moments of his life. However, whereas the creature vengefully murders Shelley’s Elizabeth on her wedding night, STC’s production offers an unexpected turn for the couple.

Elizabeth attempts to call off the engagement with Victor, citing that his absence and negligence has built a wall between them. She also expresses doubts about his desire for children. However, believing that motherhood holds more for her than a loving marriage, Elizabeth pleads with Victor to marry her, to which he arrogantly concedes. While we do not see Victor interact with his creature as in Shelley’s novel, the demands of both the creature and Elizabeth converge audibly as she begs Victor to “make me a wife”— a plea that echoes the creature’s famous request in Shelley’s novel, when he demands that Frankenstein create a companion for him.

Victor leaves Elizabeth during her pregnancy to settle his debts, so to speak, in Ingolstadt. He invents a story about his dangerously obsessive colleague threatening their family so that he may cover up the true source of their surveillance. When he returns to meet his five-day-old child, he begs Elizabeth to depart Geneva with him immediately. Elizabeth protests, insisting their daughter is too young to travel, to which Victor suggests leaving her behind to keep her safe. Begrudged at her inability to feed the child herself, Elizabeth has also hired a wetnurse named Esther (Takayo in a secondary role) who warns Elizabeth about the emotional toll of leaving her child behind—and to be suspicious of her husband’s motives. After a devastating argument in which audiences recognize Elizabeth’s bleeding-heart dilemma about what it means to be a good parent, the couple leave the child behind. While Burns invents this scene for her adaptation, it is ironically haunted by the novel’s deep interrogation of what it means to abandon one’s own creation.

A pinnacle work of Romantic literature, Frankenstein is well understood as a commentary on scientific versus godly creationism. It makes sense that in an adaptation centered on Victor’s family and romantic life, the doctor’s act of creationism would assume new meaning when juxtaposed with Elizabeth’s maternal narrative. Grieving her abandonment yet hopeful of reuniting with her daughter, Elizabeth is pushed to the breaking point. Victor continues to mislead and misguide her—dragging her across Europe for reasons still unknown to her. Upon returning to Geneva, Elizabeth adopts a small girl she believes is her own child, Eva (alternatively played by child actors Monroe E. Barnes and Mila Weir). As Eva grew, however, she caught the attention of another father figure: the creature himself, alternately portrayed by José Espinosa and Lucas Iverson. Far from the fantastical green figure so often imagined as Frankenstein’s infamous monster, this creature is a gentle, conventionally attractive young man, forced to fend for himself and build his own identity. The creature reveals the scars of his past to Elizabeth as Victor finally admits to his own responsibility. As Victor prepares a mob to vanquish his creature once and for all, Elizabeth and Eva escape with the creature’s help. The creature surrenders to the mob, finally understanding the lengths a parent would go to protect their child. 

Frankenstein has always explored themes of family and paternalism, and Burns’s timely production rightly brings attention to the feminine perspective in these discussions. This invites consideration of what Shelley might have felt as a woman dutifully writing in the shadow of her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and his contemporaries. Burns contemplates what it might have felt for Victor’s family to witness his descent into madness firsthand. Burns demands a more intimate reception of Frankenstein’s downfall, understanding where his tragedy truly lay and doing justice to those written out of the narrative. This bold and elegant production of Frankenstein might finally convince audiences to hold the real monster accountable for his actions.