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Candles drip wax on the dark bar in a tiny, unmarked theater. Rain patters on the tin roof. Onstage, a four-piece band dressed in black and glitter plays jazz club standards blended with dark folk.
There's nothing sexy about the monster classic Frankenstein, but the scene is set to suggest otherwise in Broken Planetarium's Fertile Ground show.
Frankenstein: A Cabaret gives the gothic story a new paradigm, making the mad doctor into a modern Portland woman with suppressed desires, in search of sexual liberation.
As Frankenstein digs up graves and patches together body parts for her monster, the story is spliced with cabaret-style dances, narration from a flamboyant sea captain (co-creator Maggie Mascal) and SNL-style skits about the gentrification of Portland. And Mary Shelley (played by the very pregnant co-creator Laura Christina Dunn) explains throughout how her classic relates to society today.
The show begins in darkness, with audio recordings of women talking about their struggles with gender expectations. One voice talks about wanting to wear tight pants simply because she loves her "booty", but feeling judged for looking desperate. Another says she felt like a slut for initiating sex with her boyfriend.
What follows is a cabaret hosted by the sexually-liberated captain, who gets turned on by things like Dead Poet's Society references. The episodic numbers alternate between drama, comedy and dance, all accompanied by a ukulele, banjo, guitar, drum, cello and tambourine playing a dark folk soundtrack. Two actresses trade off playing Shelley's monster, wearing a only nude thong, a mask and body paint in asymmetrical blobs of green and blood red.
The show is dark, explicit, and one of the funniest treatments of gender politics you'll see outside of a comedy club (or inside). Some of the Portland in-jokes are overwrought, especially a rant about the remodelling of Southeast Division Street. But the Captain's in-your-face comedy carries, like when she jokes about Portland's love of things like bacon- and lavender-infused bourbon.
The pregnant Dunn glows with sincerity and spunk, delivering a haunting strip-tease near the beginning where she croons a chant-like song about being the master of life, not a servant. As she sings, Dunn pulls pages of a novel off her skin to reveal her pregnant belly, covered in red glitter.
Although the theme of Portland's nouveau-posh culture comes off as heavy-handed, Frankenstein both wins laughs and provokes thought about women's issues. What Broken Planetarium has crafted is a wonderfully avant-garde variety show that caters to literary nerds, female-identifying activists and anyone who likes a good mindfuck with banjo accompaniment. Amid the fun, it goads us: look on your own monstrous desires.
GO: The Steep and Thorny Way To Heaven, SE 2nd Ave., & Hawthorne Blvd.. 8 pm Wednesday, Jan. 20 & Saturday, Jan. 23, 10 pm Thursday-Friday, Jan. 21-22 and 2 pm Sunday, Jan. 24. Individual tickets sold out.
Willamette Week