Blood and Ice (Mary Shelley and Frankenstein)

A play about the creator of Frankenstein would seem an excellent way to spend an evening here in deepest darkest Larkhall... For three nights only Rondo Theatre Company Productions’ ‘Blood and Ice’ by Liz Lochhead directed by Lisa Thrower explores the tumultuous and tragic life of Mary Shelley and the extraordinary people who influenced her.
The core of the story is the infamous summer of 1816, the ‘Year without a Summer’ when eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley nee Godwin (Bex Key), her lover the poet Percy Bysshe Shelly (Tim Hounsome), and her step-sister Clare Clairmont (Lucy Brownhill) were joined by Lord Byron (Matt Nation) at the Shelleys home on shores of Lake Geneva Switzerland. As a means of entertaining themselves during the largely dreary weather, Byron issued a legendary challenge to see who could write the most terrifying ghost story. Mary’s answer was Frankenstein, published anonymously in 1818. While the play looks back at this particular summer we are invited to watch events where Mary is haunted by her own creation, racked by guilt at events and scandals that surrounded her romance with Shelley, and the many tragedies that followed. Through flashbacks and dream-like soliloquies Mary takes us to a time when she was passionate and idealistic in stark contrast to a present where she is near broken, grief-stricken and completely demoralised.
Lochhead’s play revised numerous times since its first production in 1982 had me googling some fascinating facts and historic figures as soon as I got back to the DeafboyOne cave! What’s more, these are people who seem to have epitomised the conflict between intellectual fervour gone mad and the skewing of social norms for the period. These were the original New Romantics, the New Enlightment figures of their time. These cerebral explorers lived their lives of sex, drugs and passionate philosophical discussion. "It was a world where men played around, women got pregnant and everyone died..." 

This Gothic production does not disappoint. The play follows the story of the foursome to the death of both Byron and Shelley, and beyond to Mary's struggle in understanding why she wrote the horrifying Frankenstein. The play is a rollercoaster of events and emotions, and what is perhaps most impressive is that Bex Key, on stage during the entire two hour run of the show, manages to sustain an incredible amount of energy and focus throughout. While the other characters run in and out of scenes, Mary is the show's emotional core, and anchors the action as well as driving its progression.
Tim Hounsomes' portrayal of Shelley is part comic part pathos yet thrilling. From the moment Shelley comes on stage (wrapped in a table cloth, much to Mary's chagrin), his presence demands the attention of the audience. His good-natured camaraderie and easygoing attitude toward each of the calamities that confront the party of four over the course of the evening make it easy to see why the younger Mary would have been willing elope with a married man whose wife and children were back in England.
The jaded, cynical Lord Byron played by Matt Nation spends much of his time lecturing the others,  his oratorical debates, his outrageousness exemplified by his Richard 111rd type stoop and his delight in having a code of rules to flout like spittle in the face of innocence, you would almost believe Marys' Frankenstein was inspired by this monster of the intellect... Byron himself.
The fourth member of the group is Mary's half-sister Claire, played by Lucy Brownhill. Claire is the dippy self seeker in this group; she alternates as Mary's confidant and as Byron's plaything,  Lucy is able to lift Claire's petulant naïveté into something more pointed and focussed.
Finally, the cast is filled out by Alexia Jones, who plays Elise the young maid employed by the Shelley's in their travels. Alexia spends very little time on stage, but manages to make the most of the appearances - and it's remarkable to see the transformation undergone by the initially timid Elise, who in the end makes the point that Mary's high-minded ideals are deeply rooted in both hypocrisy and class divides.
A word of mention too for the Rondo Crew. Excellent 'period piece' hair by Charlotte Howard, simple and effective attention to detail by Peter Boddy, ASM by Angela Boddy, Sound by Paul Olding, excellent period costume by Christine Fryers and last but by no means least Lisa Thrower - excellent Director whose theatre programme notes include a request which I will repeat here...
"During the run of Blood and Ice we are collecting for the Prader-Willi Syndrome Association.
This is something particularly close to the heart of the Director of this production whose niece was born with PWS last summer."  Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) is a genetic abnormality causing physical and learning disabilities throughout life. Individuals with PWS are challenged by almost constant feelings of hunger, together with immature physical and emotional development. It could be said that those with PWS live in an untreatable near permanent state of hunger. Their website is
www.pwsa.co.uk Registered Charity 284583

Blood and Ice
By Liz Lochhead
28th – 31st March 2012
8:00pm
The Rondo
St Saviours Road
Larkhall, Bath BA1 6RT

Regards DeafboyOne