By Vincent Farnsworth

Does the monster belong to Dr Frankenstein? Is Dr Frankenstein driven by “womb envy” – because he lacks a uterus, he jerry-rigs together a person on the laboratory slab? Does this same frustration drive males to create art? Do artists own their creations? 

Black Light Theater’s production of Frankenstein votes for the womb envy argument, and argues for the liberation of the creation from its creator. At the climax of this unintentionally absurdist production, Dr Frankenstein unveils his creation, which turns out to be an oversized infant wearing diapers. The curtain falls soon after and the crowd sits in silence, stunned, confused. Have they witnessed a perversion -- or a truth? 

In the traditional version of the tale, Dr Frankenstein “owns” his creation until the monster rebels to live a life of its own. In BLT’s Frankenstein, there are guest appearances of the cinematic creations ET the Extraterrestrial and Alien that likewise live their own lives, sandwiched into unrelated scenes. In the first case a knock is heard and the audience understands that ET is at the door, speaking his trademark phrase “ET go home”. Unfortunately for the unearthly visitor the door is answered by a local monster, an evil nurse who demonstrates her bedside manner by slamming the door on ET’s hand, amputating it in the process. In this context the monstrous hand is liberated not just from ET’s arm but from the long arm of Hollywood, so it can crawl freely across the creative landscape after its pitstop in a tourist-trap theater (the evening’s prerecorded introduction was in four languages, none of them Czech). In the same way, artist H.R. Giger’s Alien pupa, a hand-like parasite that infects its hosts with the Alien seed by forcing an appendage down their throats, shows up in BLT production to attack the face of Dr. Frankenstein (the creator) in its own bid at independence.  

These two appropriations by BLT are strangely connected: each is a hand with a penis attached. Giger’s creation is obviously so, and ET’s hand, with its long index finger sporting a red bulbous head that has life-giving properties, is also too phallic to be ignored. In Freudian dream symbolism, disembodied hands signify masturbation, but in these films they are transformed from a wasting of seed into a fertility symbol – thereby transforming the male’s lonely frustration into a creative act. "I wanted to have children after making ET”, Spielberg is reported as saying. BLT further emancipates the creations from being just handy penis-fertility symbols for frustrated male artists, into being independent agents free of their creators.
Both in their 20’s, ET’s hand and Giger’s Alien are living their own, separate lives in Prague. (Maybe they have trust funds?)

Divadlo Palace, Praha 1, Václavské nám. 43, tel. 224 228 814.

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