by Maria Staiano-Daniels
Daily Lobo
Frankenstein for President.
"Frankenstein in Love," showing at the Vortex through Nov. 6, resets Mary Shelley's Frankenstein against the background of a Latin American coup d'Çtat. Frankenstein's monster, El Coco, leads the rebel forces against the corrupt President Perez, who gave troublesome prisoners to doctor Frankenstein for his experiments.
When the rebels break into the doctor's underground laboratory, his hideous creations escape to take vengeance on their tormentors.
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El Coco, whose name is Spanish for boogeyman, is a creature of contradictions. Made from fragments of other people, his entire body is at war with itself, and his mind struggles to balance between order and chaos.
Albuquerque slam poet Danny Solis plays El Coco as a man of amazing strength and vulnerability. His powerful and compelling delivery gives El Coco a strange nobility, even when he is most bestial.
Brandy Slagle plays Veronique, a victim of doctor Frankenstein given unnatural desires by his experiments. Veronique and El Coco fall in love, a pairing even more disturbing than Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher.
Slagle is fantastic as Veronique, both sweet and bloodthirsty, trying to hold on to her humanity as she grows visibly more monstrous. She and Solis have wonderful chemistry. Their scenes together have real passion and depth that makes them flesh-crawlingly creepy.
"Frankenstein in Love" is gory, but its blood-spraying antics are as hilarious as they are horrifying. Various characters appear onstage skinless, horribly maimed, or snacking on a human hand with a glass of Beaujolais. The many murders that occur over the course of the play have a grotesque flair reminiscent of the "Evil Dead" movies. This gore somehow manages not to overwhelm the audience. In fact, there wasn't enough gruesome death on stage. The play lasts about three hours, most of which is sadly devoid of carnage.
The main fault of "Frankenstein in Love" is its length. The first act moved snappily along for the most part, with enough sick and twisted weirdness to keep it interesting. The second act, however, dragged like a dead whale. The characters spend way too much time talking and not enough time eating each other's hearts.
The second act was so disjointed that it seemed to belong to a different play. It was pieced together from strange and disparate elements, like its protagonist, and left audiences confused and unsatisfied.
Act 2 is not a total loss, however. It introduces two wonderful characters: Bozuffi and Doctor Fook, a tailor and a pathologist who conspire to rob the dead.
The actors who play these characters tackle their roles wholeheartedly. Mateo Sarria's Bozuffi is flamingly gay - he wears a braided topknot and, at one point, a plaid skirt. Ross Kelly's Fook is a twitchy, chain-smoking, transvestite necrophiliac. Their scenes together are a joy to watch.
The acting in "Frankenstein in Love" is, in general, fantastic. The actors relish their grisly roles and fill them with macabre melodrama. Unfortunately, even their energy can't keep Frankenstein from becoming tedious. The play should be about half as long. Some general advice for the play: less yakking, more hacking.
