We went to see Frankenstein this afternoon at the Swine Palace. The Swine Palace started off as a Bohemian group of way out there plays and then at some point conjoined with the School of Theater at LSU. Now it is training ground for young aspiring students and the forum for the top minds in drama from the world! It was excellent! Intense. The program describes the play, but it is the last line in the writing that is the key to the experience. It says, as you watch the play enfold upon our stage, you decide who is the true monster here.
It was difficult for me to really immerse myself into the play as it enfolded upon the stage, Frank was sitting next to me.
All week he would say, we are going to see Young Frankenstein this weekend. I would correct him, No, we are seeing Frankenstein. I didn't want him to think this was a comedy, after all.
And he would chuckle at things like when Dr. Frankenstein exclaims, It's alive! It's alive! picturing Gene Wilder yelling the same thing in Young Frankenstein. And when the monster comes upon the blind man in the forest, he envisioned Billy Crystal's Yiddish. And the Monster Peter Boyle dancing to The Ritz. This monster did no such dance.
But the best part the play today did not show was Madeline Kahn as Elizabeth emerging from the electricity with the grey streak in her flaming red hair, grabbing the monster and bursting into operatic ecstasy upon seeing him in his momentous glory. if you know what I mean!
