‘Frankenstein’ shows its seams

This review by longtime Charlotte arts critic Lawrence Toppman was published by The Charlotte Ledger on November 2, 2026. You can find out more about The Charlotte Ledger’s commitment to smart local news and information and sign up for our newsletter for free here. Ledger subscribers can add the Toppman on the Arts newsletter on their “My Account” page.

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by Lawrence Toppman

Nick Dear’s “Frankenstein” has been assembled like the fabled monster created by Mary Shelley’s doctor: bits and pieces sewn together clumsily enough that the seams are apparent and the sutures barely hold. The parts faithful to Shelley still move us; the additions and deletions by Dear are unhelpful and off-putting.

The main reason to see it at Theatre Charlotte is a tremendous performance by Jonavan Adams as the nameless creature, whether moaning with incoherent longing or articulately describing his loneliness and despair. He’s frightening when exacting vengeance, partly because he so lucidly explains his dark desires, yet he always inspires pathos, even during the cheesy ending.

Dear daringly begins in the middle of the famous story: The creature rolls about onstage, terrified of everything from bright light to sounds, yet clearly reaching out to someone or something he can’t define. (One of many unanswered questions in the gap-filled script: How did he escape from Frankenstein’s Swiss lab, if he’s not able to stand or speak?)

He’s stoned, whipped and beaten with clubs until he’s befriended by a blind villager who teaches him language and gives him “Paradise Lost” to read. Eventually, the blind man’s family meets and rejects him, and he makes his way to Geneva to initiate the tragic series of events that will ultimately involve all of Frankenstein’s family.

The title character has become far less relevant to the narrative. All of the backstory about his youth and researches, a huge chunk of the novel, has been excised. We’re not privy until late in the play to his passion or scientific vision, and I couldn’t decide whether Dear’s writing or Kyle Lilly’s performance made Frankenstein so monochromatic: sullen, peevish, brusque, arrogant. You can’t imagine why the warm-hearted and clear-eyed Elizabeth (passionate Chloe Shade) would think for an instant of marrying him.

The play is both oddly coy and gratuitous about violence. The creature kills a child offstage so as not to offend our sensibilities, yet rapes a woman onstage and brags lasciviously about it later. He’s subject to mood swings that might be comprehensible over the arc of a miniseries or even a long movie but seem unnaturally compressed in a play running a little over two hours.

Chris Timmons’ spooky lighting and R.J. Evans’ growling ambient sound set the right horrific tone. Aneesah Taylor’s makeup for Adams’ creature, visible from the back row but avoiding Grand Guignol excess, couldn’t be better.

Yet Timmons’ minimalist set and Dear’s refusal to include special effects make this retelling a bargain-basement approach. There’s no storm, no laboratory, no electrical apparatus, not even an assistant physician for Frankenstein. After he agrees to create a mate for the lonely creature, he just goes behind a curtain and hauls out an inexplicably pristine-looking creaturette. The miracle once needed to bring dead flesh to life becomes a pedestrian magic trick.

A thought about voices: Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller alternated in the leading roles of the world premiere run in London in 2011, and they naturally spoke with their own accents. But to then ask awkward American actors to approximate British accents while playing Swiss characters makes a production sound like a spoof of a Hammer Studios horror flick.

Lawrence Toppman covered the arts for 40 years at The Charlotte Observer before retiring in 2020. Now, he’s back in the critic’s chair for the Charlotte Ledger — look for his reviews several times each month in the Charlotte Ledger.