‘Victor’ Richly Re-Imagines ‘Frankenstein’

Victor Frankenstein stands at the edge of a precipice, staring into his future.

Having discovered a way to animate dead tissue, he constructed a creature from body parts and brought it to life. The hideous thing has turned lonely and murderous, however, and to escape an advancing mob, it has just scrambled down this rocky promontory, ordering Victor to follow.

This is where ambition leads, English playwright Alistair Faulkner suggests in “Victor,” his adaptation of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein.”

His rich, literate treatment of the material is given an extraordinarily detailed staging at the Eclectic Company Theatre in North Hollywood.

Every element fits beautifully in this eerily gothic staging by Taylor Ashbrook, from the cold, dead feel of John J. Grant’s lighting to the giant sutures in the stage floor that stitch the rocky promontory to an adjoining setting inside a rustic cottage, a wonderfully subtle touch in Jeff G. Rack’s set design.

Approaching this well-known story from a different angle, Faulkner sets his version on a remote island at the northern tip of Scotland, where, in 1810, the handsome, brooding Victor (James Castle Stevens) thinks he has found sanctuary with the quietly adoring Agnes (Elizabeth Dement); her doctor brother, James (Brian David Pope); and James’ lovely if conceited wife, Freya (Alison Robertson).

The creature (a hulking, shrouded David Reynolds) will find Victor here, however, and soon, death will haunt a place where the tormented scientist had found such abundant life.

In our current age of cloning and other forms of genetic engineering, the warnings of Shelley’s “Frankenstein” echo anew. As Victor warns here, the question “What if?,” asked too many times, can precipitate a downfall.

Daryl H. Miller.

“Victor,” Eclectic Company Theatre, 5312 Laurel Canyon Blvd., North Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends March 24. $12-$15. (818) 508-3003. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

*

A Strange Triangle at

the Heart of ‘Destronelli’

A love-starved gay man, the idol of a love-starved widow, is stalked by a love-starved admirer who may or may not exist only in his mind.

That’s the bizarre triangle around which Dennis Miles’ “Destronelli” at Theatre of Note revolves. Miles’ intriguing but occasionally overwrought new drama concerns the human hunger for love, and the strange permutations into which raw need can twist that tender emotion.

Ustin Staymansion (Dan Wingard), a bright, intellectually inquisitive gay man who can’t sustain a romantic relationship, finds solace and fellowship with his widowed elderly neighbor Millie Lepidus (Pamela Gordon). Ailing in body but earthy in appetite, Millie loves Ustin with a sensual and hopeless passion he suspects but can never return.

For nine years, Ustin has gotten phone calls and love letters from an anonymous stalker. When the stalker, Pietro Destronelli (Dean Lemont), introduces himself to Ustin at a gallery opening, they connect on a deep psychic level. All too soon, the appropriately named Destronelli proves a destroyer, an agent of psychotic sensual force threatening to unhinge Ustin’s life and sanity. Whether the threat is real or the pathological product of Ustin’s emotional despair remains unclear.

Whatever Destronelli’s derivation, he is the engineer of tragedy. Under the keen-edged direction of Kiff Scholl, the actors deliver finely rendered, emotionally layered performances that largely compensate for the play’s stylistic excesses. Wingard strikes an impressive balance of feyness and masculinity as Ustin, while the bluff and imposing Lemont keeps us vertiginously off-guard in the volatile title turn. However it is Gordon’s Millie--needy, defiant and unabashedly sensual--who most excites our admiration and pity.

F. Kathleen Foley

“Destronelli,” Theatre of Note, 1517 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; also March 3 and 10, 4 p.m. Ends March 30. $12-$15. (323) 856-8611. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

*

Light Touch, Fine Timing

Buoy Simon’s ‘Fools’

On the heels of Blue Sphere Alliance’s blithe staging of Neil Simon’s “Fools,” ending Saturday at Hollywood’s Lex Theatre, comes Actors Co-op’s effervescent production of the comic fable, at the Crossley Terrace Theatre.

In this affectionate bit of frippery, based on the Jewish folk tale “The Wise Men of Chelm,” a Russian village is cursed with stupidity. The shepherd (Jarret Lemaster) waits for his missing sheep to write home, the vendor (Linda Kerns) confuses flowers for fish, the magistrate (Jim Custer) is time-challenged, the mailman (Gary Clemmer) is address-challenged and the butcher (Mick Montgomery) sports prodigious self-inflicted wounds.

Meanwhile, the village doctor (Greg Baldwin) and his wife (Brenda Ballard) burst with pride when their grown daughter Sophia masters the art of sitting.

Young schoolmaster Leon (Jeff Charlton, an irresistible combination of eagerness and awakening passion), arriving to take up his new teaching post and playing perplexed straight man to all the lunacy, is soon smitten with beautiful but dim Sophia (played by Amy Landers with droll sincerity) and determines to break the curse.

He only has 24 hours to do it or he’ll lose his wits too. Complicating matters, villainous Count Yousekevitch plans to marry Sophia himself. (Thom Babbes’ single-eyebrowed Count is a hoot in red velvet Cossack garb with gigantic gold epaulets. He’s hilariously insecure about his short stature and totes a little gold platform to stand on.)

Without an essential light touch and tight timing, the nonstop silliness--visual and oral--would wear thin fast, but director Henry Polic II and his assured ensemble expertly navigate the zany twists and turns with buoyant charm. They are complemented by Robert Bingham’s dappled, woodsy fairy tale set with its comic touches, Dana Kilgore’s warm lighting, Geoff Green’s playful sound design and Dana C. Litwak’s colorful folk costumes.

Lynne Heffley

“Fools,” Actors Co-op at the Crossley Terrace Theatre, 1760 N. Gower, Hollywood, Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2:30 p.m. Ends May 12. $18. (323) 462-8460. Running time: 2 hours