Playwrights: Adapted from the H.G. Wells novel by Robert Kauzlaric. At: Lifeline Theatre, 6912 N. Glenwood. Phone: 773-761-4477; $25, $15 students, rush tickets half hour before the show. Runs through: Dec. 2
The fuzzy and fanged beasties that claw and growl their way through the Island of Dr. Moreau in Lifeline Theatre's adaptation of H.G. Wells alarming classic are among the season's more amazing feats of stagecraft. Designed by Kimberly G. Morris, they're supreme examples of innovation, intelligence and theatricality. And they may be too good for the bloody drama's own good: These creatures are so realistic that when the good doctor starts slicing them open sans anesthesia, The Island of Dr. Moreau becomes a distressing place to be indeed.
Vivisection as a medical concept is one thing. Viewed under an unflinching glare as it's practiced on a splayed and wailing puma, it's emotionally dismaying even if one knows intellectually that the puma is really an actor who most likely remains unharmed in director Paul S. Holmquist's appropriately shocking interpretation of a shocking tale.
The Island of Dr. Moreau is a sprawling sci-fi horror story, launched with a violent storm, a ship dashed to splinters and a butterfly collector cast adrift somewhere between Peru and the rest of the world. It travels to the perilous cliffs and foreboding caves of the title island and across the seas to the London of Jack the Ripper and the Elephant Man. In all, it's a multi-tentacled morass of a story: Adaptor Robert Kauzlaric deserves mighty credit for honing it to a vivid 90 minutes without compromising the narrative. Yet its very bloodthirstiness—without which Wells' story would be gutted—makes Moreau difficult to take.
At its grisly heart is Dr. Moreau ( Nigel Patterson, ruthless, monomaniacal and as fiendishly attractive as Sweeney Todd's long-lost brother ) , a fellow with plays God, cracking 'the bullwhip of evolution' by slicing open animals and reconfiguring them as quasi-human. ( The key difference between the two: 'An animal may be cunning and ferocious, but it takes a real man to tell a lie.' ) In one astounding scene, Moreau embarks on a bit of self-surgery, slowly driving what appears a foot-long syringe into his arm. It so looks ferociously real, skin slowly bulging over the burrowing needle, that one hopes Patterson had a tetanus shot as part of his compensation package.
In less flashy but no less valuable roles are Phil Timberlake as the gaunt, ghost-eyed butterfly collector who eventually leaves the island but will never truly escape it and Yosh Hayashi as a dissolute, wry and ancient-before-his-time soul whose only relief comes from quoting Shakespeare and blackout drinking.
Moreau is taut, exciting and unforgettable. But if you're the sort who goes soft at the thought of animal experimentation or homeless pets, you might want to take your ticket money and make a donation to PETA instead.