'Frankenstein 2029' Comes to Life With Help of Hamilton Resident

A Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School graduate and current Lafayette College student is working with his classmates to bring “Frankenstein 2029” to the stage.

Keaton Holappa of Hamilton helped created the “audacious theater and art performance” “Frankenstein 2029,” which is based on an “interdisciplinary exploration of “the eroding boundaries between man and machine -- and its implications for both the definition and direction of humanity.”

“With this production, we tackled the big, transcendent questions facing us all: the nature of humanity’s connectivity, the impact of socio-economic and gender inequalities, the ethics of extending life, and most especially technology’s current and future role in our lives,” art professor Ed Kerns said in a statement. “How will we be changed, individually, collectively, by these issues?”

The production sprawls through eight venues on Lafayette’s Williams Arts Campus, and involved more than 80 students, faculty, staff and community members melding their expertises in art, chemistry, computer science, engineering, English, neuroscience, theater, women’s and gender studies and more.

The semester-long project included an immersion into the mind of the brilliant, mad Victor Frankenstein himself and his Victor NeuroTech lab. Their ultimate product launch is the Creature itself, which came to life several times throughout each performance. Other students and staff created SAViN (Society Against Victor NeuroTech) to warn of the dangers of unbridled technology, and voiced their concerns as picket wielding protesters during the shows.

Photo credit: Lafayette College