Local playwright (and occasional Bohemian contributor) David Templeton wrote Mary Shelley’s Body, his one-woman show, specifically for friend and longtime artistic director of Spreckels Theatre Company Sheri Lee Miller.
A true testament to the considerable acting skill set of Miller, the play is a briskly paced exploration of what happens when a literary titan wakes up dead and feels urged, by forces unseen, to tell her story. It runs at the Spreckels Performing Arts Center in Rohnert Park through Feb. 2.
Minimal design work wonderfully captures the hazy, unknowable world between where the body ends and the soul begins. A simple graveyard is the setting, filled out by gauzy flowing curtains and a large crypt-like stone that Miller frequently splays out on while lightning flashes and thunder rolls. The atmosphere is effective as hell.
As Mary Shelley weaves tales of her life and her most famous creation, Frankenstein’s monster, the audience is transported to far-flung locales such as Geneva, Switzerland, and the dirty streets of early 1800’s London. At times funny, at times grotesque, Shelley monologues through two short acts in an attempt to figure out why she has not moved on from the human plane. Through her reveries, we become privy to her darkest secrets and most heartbreaking moments.
It is Miller’s ability to create a whole world for us that is the most successful aspect of this piece. Miller displays a beautiful sense of public solitude, and moves from discovery to discovery naturally, with the ease of a seasoned performer. Her hands move like a conductor’s, telling strange and eerie accounts that we can actually visualize, while her bare toes wiggle delightfully each time she perches on her grave. This is head-to-toe acting, and was much appreciated by this reviewer despite a slightly uneven beginning to the play.
Part fiction, part biography, the script uses mysticism and alchemy to round out what was a very sorrowful life for the female author, who dealt with her fair bulk of struggles before dying at age 53. The finale leaves us hanging on a rather abrupt note. But this just means our imaginations must take us beyond the veil with Shelley as she seeks out her next purpose.
A showcase performance and a creative, evocative and original script by a local playwright make Mary Shelley’s Body well worth one’s time.
‘Mary Shelley’s Body’ runs through Feb. 2 in the Condiotti Experimental Theater at the Spreckels Performing Arts Center, 5409 Snyder Ln., Rohnert Park. Fri-Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 2pm. $14–$32. 707.588.3400. spreckelsonline.com.
