BWW Reviews: MONSTERS OF THE VILLA DIODATI at Creative Cauldron Stage

A veritable whirlwind of events, contrivances, and literal storms brought Lord Byron, his physician John William Polidori, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, and Mary’s stepsister, Claire Clairmont to the Villa Diodati mansion at Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Cooped up away from the wet and ungenial weather, eighteen-year-old Mary described how the group turned to digging up ghost stories to read to one another, before Byron challenged himself, Polidori, Percy and Mary to write new ones. This informal contest over a few cold days in the infamously terrible summer of 1816 would come to produce two genre-defining works of horror literature: Polidori’s The Vampyre and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, whose 1831 author’s foreword includes Mary’s telling of the events at Villa Diodati and how they acted as the catalytic spark that breathed life to “so very hideous an idea.” 

The notion of this star-studded creative séance of sorts, and amidst dark and stormy weather in a century-old Swiss mansion no less, is almost too good to be true, and has, unsurprisingly, served as inspiration for books, plays, films, and even an episode of Doctor Who. In 2016, Creative Cauldron Stage premiered a new musical dramatising these events: Monsters of the Villa Diodati, with music by Matt Conner and a book and lyrics by Stephen Gregory Smith. Now, a decade onwards, Creative Cauldron ushers in the spooky season with a new production directed by Conner. 

There’s a spark of excitement about a new musical. A musical can be such a daunting and imposing thing, with so many moving pieces and winding roads to get lost down, that the very creation of a new one, especially outside the established, insular Broadway pipeline, feels like a miracle in its own rite. For a new musical to even be good is something else altogether. 

Conner and Smith’s Monsters of the Villa Diodati wastes no time putting its own unique spin on their inspiration point. A tight and compelling chamber musical with just five actors, Monsters is unapologetically camp, silly at times, haunting in others, and very, very gay. 

Conner’s score is in that kind of genreless/genre-jumping, piano forward, energetic and highly syncopated rock/pop style that was all over the new musical theater scene of the late 90s and early 2000s — but it’s a particularly good take on that style, thoughtfully composed with great detail, catchy, diverse and driving melodies, and rich harmonies that regularly put all five voices to full use. 

Conner’s direction also shines. His use of the small Creative Cauldron Stage is wide and dynamic, his blocking interestingly angular. Keeping the action running with a small cast and essentially one location is no small feat, and Conner achieves this with rapid transitions and a considered energy level for the performances, which are explosive enough to meet the melodrama where it’s at but not so big as to overload the intimate venue. Conner is greatly aided by Margie Jervis’ set, which is impressively imposing and full of whimsical transformations, and her many splendid props giving each nook and cranny depth and character. 

Smith’s work is a bit less even. His lyrics are well written and hold together as prose, but they are often too opaque and oblique to deliver the kind of sharp, pace-maintaining character and plot beats that a musical of this size and scope requires. The book is incredibly ambitious and filled with wonderful ideas; so many wonderful ideas, in fact, that there isn’t space for any specific one to develop to its full potential. 

Is Monsters a character study on the unfortunate and brilliant Mary Shelley? Is it the origin story of how Frankenstein came to be? Is it, like Frankenstein, musings on birth and creation? Is it, like Frankenstein, a subversive story that casts decorated men like Byron as the true monsters, and the often vilified and marginalized as their victims? Is it a Bergman-esque, raunchy comedy in which five characters in tight quarters quarrel, bicker, and fall in and out of love? Is it a meditation on how a writer’s fiction extends beyond the work itself and into the story of the work itself? It is, to some extent, all of these things, and none of these things to the fullest. Which makes it no less entertaining, if ultimately unfulfilling. 

It’s also hard to avoid how much more interested Conner and Smith are in the men of their story and their various homoerotic flings. Monsters can’t do justice to Mary Shelley when she has to wait for a full act of the Byron/Percy/Polidori love triangle to exhaust itself before taking center stage. The same is true of Mary and Percy’s relationship, which never receives anywhere near the attention of Percy’s with Byron. 

What is undeniable is the strength of the characters themselves, each full of life and feeling. The five of them are brought to life by an incredible cast that carries the night with ease. 

Susan Derry reprises her original role as Mary Shelley, in a measured and assured turn that grounds and fleshes out the lead. New to this production are Ben Ribler, who plays an affable but slightly neurotic Percy Shelley, Rachel Cahoon as a sharp-witted and flirtatious Claire Clairmont, and Alan Gutierrez-Urista, whose angst-ridden Dr. John William Polidori is so emotive and powerful that he turns what could have been a supporting character into what might as well have been the lead role. Lastly, returning to Monsters, David Landstrom’s Byron by way of Frank-N-Furter is electric. Tasked with a difficult, at times unpleasant, antagonist, Landstrom swings wildly from charismatic and seductive to insecure and unhinged, capturing something truly special in the role. The rockstar quality of his vocals already cements this as one of the standout performances of the season, after having originated the role of Polidori in the original production. 

The real-life Mary Shelley only saw one theatrical production of Frankenstein in her lifetime, and she wrote that “it appeared to excite a breathless eagerness in the audience… and all stayed til it was over.” Monsters of the Villa Diodati does much the same, and who knows how many more productions of it we will get to see in ours’. Such a creation is indeed a special thing, worth seeing and well worth staying for. 

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