Review Roundup: MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN Opens Off-Broadway

Tony nominee Robert Fairchild leads the Off-Broadway premiere of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, joined by Avey Noble (Radio City Christmas Spectacular), Krysty Swann(Mozart's Requiem at Carnegie Hall; Verdi'sRequiem at Lincoln Center), Mia Vallet (Lucy Thurber's Asheville at Rattlestick), Peyton Lusk (Falsettos on Broadway), Rocco Sisto(OBIE Award for sustained excellence), Shiv Ajay Pancholi-Parekh, and Paul Wesley ("The Vampire Diaries," Cal In Camo).

Fairchild, who choreographs and stars, is making his Off-Broadway debut, as well as his debut as a choreographer.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein began performances December 21st at The Pershing Square Signature Center (480 West 42nd Street between Dyer and 10th Avenues) and opened last night, December 27th.

Let's see what the critics had to say...

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Laura Collins-Hughes, The New York Times: Hooked up to wires, then writhing on the floor, the creature is a nightmare vision. Yet he has the great fortune to be played by the dancer Robert Fairchild, who possesses a can't-take-your-eyes-off-him eloquence of movement and facial expression. Mr. Fairchild, who created his own choreography, morphs into a monster of delicate, disarming beauty, an innocent perambulating through a world he flounders to understand.

Michael Dale, BroadwayWorld: But though the musical elements are top shelf, Mary Shelley'S FRANKENSTEIN suffers on the dramatic end. There is little thread connecting the scenes and director Donald T. Sanders' staging is perfunctory at best. Accomplished New York theatre veteran Rocco Sisto does his usual professional job as both a blind man who seeks assistance from the creature and writer William Godwin, but Vallet and Wesley display only rudimentary acting skills.

Joe Dziemianowicz, NY Daily News: "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" is a theatrical monster mash-up that's easy to admire for ambition, but less so in execution...as the show unfolds in a patchwork of classical music, book passages read by Mary Shelley (Mia Vallet, who also plays a character from her novel), personal letters and dance, it feels as stitched together and ungainly as the wretch revivified by Victor Frankenstein (Paul Wesley, who also plays Percy Shelley).

Photo by Shirin Tinati

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