Frankenstein at City Lit Theater

Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended

"...If the pacing weren't so lugubrious throughout, that might work — but Krystosek's Victor isn't passionate enough as either villain or protagonist to hold our interest. As it is, the show mostly comes to life because of Mark Pracht's sharply calibrated turn as the creature. By far the most affecting moments take place between Pracht and Eustace Allen as De Lacey, the kindly blind man who takes the creature in. Allen also makes his brief turn as Waldman so interesting that I wished the show were about him instead of Victor. The technical bells and whistles of the reanimation scene overpower the text as surely as Pracht's creature overpowers his onstage nemesis."

Centerstage - Recommended

"... After two centuries, Frankenstein remains a compelling story of conflict, not between one opponent who is good and another who is evil, but between two who are a mixture of both."

ChicagoCritic - Recommended

"...Once The Creature returns to Victor and demands that Victor create a mate for him, Victor complies but ultimately destroys the female creature. Without giving away too much of the suspense and action, let me state that the horror and violence upsets Victor’s world as evil dominates. This chilling tale is well paced, vivid, and well acted, especially by Ed Krystosek and Mark Pracht. Seeing a horror novel come alive with chilling effects is difficult to achieve on stage but McCabe’s production hits the mark. It is a graphic retelling of the Frankenstein story filled with empathetic characters and a true monster who quotes Milton and the Bible. It is engaging theatre."

Chicago Stage and Screen - Recommended

"... Ready for Halloween, Bo List’s faithful adaptation, here competently if not compellingly staged by Terry McCabe, discovers Victor, formerly an anatomical surgeon in Geneva, now in the Arctic wastes to which his Creature has pursued him. Before dying, the broken man tells the captain his woeful tale (the body count comes to seven) of how disastrously he explored the body’s “capacity to rewind.” His Pyrrhic experiment used current to trigger the body’s own “biological electricity” but went terribly awry when the Creature’s supposedly superior brain fell prey to the nastiness of his other parts."