32 | New Scientist | 17 August 2019
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OVER the past three seasons of
Netflix’s 1980s homage Stranger
Things, my favourite character has
consistently been Jim Hopper, the
grumbly police chief with a good
heart played by David Harbour.
When I finished watching this
summer’s instalment of that
show, I was looking for more of
Harbour. Boy, did I find it.
In a bizarre 30-minute Netflix
special called Frankenstein’s
Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein,
he stars as fictionalised versions of
himself (David Harbour III), his
own father (David Harbour Jr) and
his father’s father (David Harbour
Sr). The recursive title drew me in,
and once I started watching, I
couldn’t tear my eyes away. I just
kept thinking: “What, exactly,
am I watching?”
It is a mockumentary in which
David Harbour III is exploring his
father’s work as an actor and
playwright. The show is cut
throughout with present-day
scenes in which this version of
Harbour is interviewing friends
of his dead father in an effort to
learn more about the man and
his approach to acting.That approach, it very quickly
turns out, was to be terrible. The
bulk of the programme is made
up of flashbacks to the televised
play Harbour Jr (remember, that’s
the father) wrote and starred in
about Dr Frankenstein and his
much-maligned monster.
Every choice in the following
30 minutes feels poorly made onpurpose. The lighting is awful,
the sets are cheaply made and
the acting sets a new bar for
melodrama. Nothing is subtle.
Three minutes in, there is a direct
reference within the play to the
trope of Chekhov’s gun. (The
playwright’s stricture was that if
a character brings one on stage in
act one, it had jolly well better go
off before the curtain call.)
Everything that makes this
show almost painful to watch kept
me hooked. We see shoddy home-A monstrous performance The first science fiction novel, Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein, has withstood many a bad adaptation, wooden performance and
wobbly set. It has met its match now, though, says a delighted Chelsea Whyte
“ It is quite deliberately
confusing: who is
man and who is
monster? Do we all
contain a bit of both?”TV
Frankenstein’s
Monster’s Monster,
Frankenstein
Directed by Daniel
Gray Longino
Netflix
Chelsea also
recommends...
TV
Stranger Things
By the Duffer brothers
Netflix
Supernatural beings and
government plots take over
a small US town in a show
full of iconic 80s references.
Book
Frankenstein
Mary Shelley
Go back to the source: a tale
of a scientist creating life,
and being horrified by what
he has made.
movie-esque footage of Harbour Jr
giving clinics on poorly lit stages
where, referring to a leading New
York drama school, he proclaims,
“That’s how I got into Juilliard!”
Then there are uncomfortable
moments from a painful interview
he gave on a mid-80s talk show.
Then there is Harbour Jr as
Frankenstein and Frankenstein’s
monster (the show makes a big
play of the common confusion
between the two). Dr Frankenstein,
in this telling of his story, is
pretending to be his monster,
while his assistant pretends to be
the doctor. It is all quite
deliberately confusing: who is
man and who is monster? Do we
all contain a bit of both?
If you are looking for hints of
Mary Shelley’s masterpiece in this
absurd show, this is the only sliver
of it. The whole production is
poking fun at itself through nested
lenses, and then winking at the
audience and itself in a meta-
commentary on the act of acting
and maybe even the idea of
creating something original.
I especially loved the inclusion
of the fictional television adverts
for a store called Chekhov Guns &
Ammo and a steakhouse called
London, USA. In the latter,
Harbour, as his fictional father,
parodies the famous Orson Welles
advertisement out-takes where he
gets increasingly belligerent and
demanding. I couldn’t help but
wonder whether Harbour is
poking a bit of fun at himself.
This may be Netflix nakedly
cashing in on its rising star. It
may be a vanity project for
Harbour. Or maybe it is him
admitting that he, like all of us, is
a bit of a mad scientist. But it isn’t
a bad way to spend half an hour. ❚AL
LY
SO
N^ RIGGS/NET
FLIXDavid Harbour stars in
Frankenstein’s Monster’s
Monster, FrankensteinThe TV column
Chelsea Whyte is a reporter
for New Scientist based in
Boston, Massachusetts.
Follow her on Twitter
@ chelswhyte