| “Afraid of Frankenstein” captivates audiences at Heartland Theater |
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| Written by Hannah Tomlin, Daily Vidette Senior Staff |
| Friday, 30 October 2009 04:47 |
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After devoting the past 46 years to theatre leadership at Illinois Wesleyan University, John Ficca has proven that he still maintains the ability to entertain audiences with his wickedly creative work. The latest play he has directed, “Afraid of Frankenstein,” is the story of a slightly dysfunctional family that faces a strange situation when a mysterious woman, who claims to be a distant cousin from Italy, appears at their door and causes a lot of commotion in their lives. Daniel Martino, played by Bruce Boeck, is married to Joan Martino(played by Lori Cook Baird). At the beginning of the play, it seems as though their marriage is about to end. Then the presence of this unexpected visitor Ida DeVina (Cathy Sutliff), starts to put even more strain on the situation.  To make matters worse, Porter Wilkinson (Joan Martino’s father), played by Todd Wineburner, also appears at their home unannounced and seems to be suffering a nervous breakdown. Their daughter, Amy Martino, (Genevieve Pilon), makes a surprise trip home from college on the same day that Ida and Porter arrive. Unsurprisingly, she is not very happy to discover that a stranger from Italy has moved into her bedroom. As each character struggles with his or her own problems, Ida believes that she can solve their issues through rituals that she learned through her unusual religion. Ficca said that fear and religion were some of the major themes in the play. “It’s really a satire on religion because of the fact that a lot of charlatans can just come in and captivate you by speaking to you in a variety of ritualistic ways,” he said. He added that Ida’s character was representative of these ideas. “We are very often sucked into either a ritual situation or a religion because of the liturgy, because of the practices, because of the ceremonies, because of the mystery and she shows all these things, the mystery and the ritual,” Ficca said. The basic idea for his play is represented in a scene in which Porter confesses to his daughter, Joan, that his anxiety problems have been leading him to feel suicidal. In this scene, he describes being afraid of everything and feeling overwhelmed by the amount of “stuff” we have in our society. He compares this emotion to the feeling he had when he was “afraid of Frankenstein” as a child. “It really came from the scene where Porter talks about being afraid of Frankenstein and likens it to feelings he has now when he is upset when faced with the modern awareness of things like stores where there is so much stuff and its almost claustrophobic,” Ficca said. “If you’ve ever gone to Chicago and gotten stuck in two or three miles of cars hung up, spewing out their gases and stuff, I thought, if somebody had a phobia, how would they react? What he has got is a phobia. He is struck with anxiety, an anxiety phobia. So that’s where the basic idea came from,” he added. Near the end of the play, Aldo Venchenza (Ben Hackett) appears at the Martino home to bring his mother, Ida, back to Italy. In this scene, many of the mysteries about her identity are finally revealed. Cathy Sutliff described some of Ida’s characteristics. “She is multilayered when you think about it. So, it all depended on the moment of who I was actually playing, because I was going from an Australian to an Italian to a mystique, depending on what the moment was, what she was feeling, who she was talking to and how she was trying to express herself,” she said. “Afraid of Frankenstein” will be performed at Heartland Theatre Company from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1. It will also be performed from Nov. 5 to the 8 and Nov. 12 to the 15. |
