The Mechanical at the Johnson Theater

Theater for the New City presents Bond Street Theatre's production of The Mechanical, written and directed by Michael McGuigan, playing at Theater For The New City's Johnson Theater from 23 Apr - 10 May 2009.

The Mechanical interweaves the characters of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" with the true story of The Turk, a chess-playing mechanical illusion that toured the world from 1770 to 1854.

The Turk or Automaton Chess Player was a mechanized mannequin of a Turkish servant that was displayed to the world as a chess-playing machine. It amazed royalty, foreshadowed computers and duped the public with its clever design. Napoleon lost a match to it and Benjamin Franklin famously lost his temper in a match with it. Constructed in 1770 by inventor Wolfgang von Kempelen to impress Empress Maria Theresa, it was actually a mechanical illusion. Similar to a magician's box trick, it concealed a chess master inside. Following the death of its maker, it was famously exhibited by Johann Nepomuk M�lzel, a Bavarian musician and showman. The hoax was finally revealed in the 1820s and the device was ultimately consumed in a fire at the Chinese Museum in New York in 1854.

In The Mechanical, playwright Michael McGuigan imagines that the chess master inside was actually Frankenstein's monster. Weaving truth and fiction, the play stages the creation of the Monster interwoven with encounters between Dr. Frankenstein and both Kempelen and M�lzel. As the play blends the two tales, it yields themes on the process and responsibility of creation. At stake is the very essence of creation as Frankenstein's fits of madness are contrasted with von Kempelen's inspired fun.

The play features Brian Foley, Meghan Frank, Richard Newman, Joanna Sherman, Joshua Wynter and Anna Zastrow.

Set design is by Michael McGuigan, with costumes by Carla Bellisio and lighting by Benjamin Tevelow.