The cover of ‘The Island of Dr. Moreau’, a new play adapted by Bill Amos from the novel by H.G. Wells.
MOREAU’S HORROR
Edward Prendick was rescued from the unforgiving sea by a man named Montgomery, having narrowly escaping death only to find himself trapped on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where his unending nightmare has only just begun.
Doctor Moreau was cast from civilization and branded a sadist who broke the laws of nature after a flayed dog escaped from his laboratory in London and a reporter disguised as a lab technician exposed Moreau’s inhumane practices involving animals to the world.
Montgomery was given a chance for redemption only to be damned by the actions of a madman. A life of lethargy and apathy is his only solace as he struggles to find himself amidst the madness that is forged from flesh and bone on the island of Dr. Moreau.
The Beast Folk have built a misshapen society on the island. As products of Dr. Moreau’s endless experiments, they have conformed themselves to a strict code or morals passed down from Moreau through the leader of the Beast Folk, the Sayer of the Law.
Artwork from the ill-fated “Island of Dr. Moreau” film originally conceived in the early 1990’s by Richard Stanley for New Line Cinema. The Beast Folk bring Edward Prendick to learn the way of the law.
A twisted tale of torment and terror, The Island of Doctor Moreau is one of H.G. Wells’ finest achievements. The story masterfully creates a sense of isolation in the minds of the reader as the story of a sinister scientist and his dismal creations is told through the eyes of a castaway trying to free himself from chaos by any means necessary.
I’ve taken it as a personal challenge to recreate The Island of Dr. Moreau for the stage.
READ A SAMPLES – THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU
TERROR TRANSFORMED
There have been multiple rehashes and renditions translated for the screen, the earliest of which was Island of Lost Souls starring Charles Laughton (as Dr. Moreau) and featuring Bela Lugosi (as Sayer of the Law). The film was produced by Paramount Studios and released in 1932.
CLICK HERE TO WATCH ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (1932) TRAILER
While Richard Stanley explained in an interview that the film was not well-received by author H.G. Wells, who wrote the book in 1896, it is considered by many to be a classic and has even earned a place among many who share that status in the Criterion Collection. If you appreciate Hollywood’s Golden Age, and enjoy watching movies from the era of true celluloid, then I highly recommend that you give Island of Lost Souls your attention. Charles Laughton’s performance is priceless, portraying Dr. Moreau as a madman seeking to achieve Godlike status as he pieces together his own race of humanoid monsters to wreak havoc on the unfortunate cast away, Edward Parker (Richard Arlen).
Several other adaptations were made of Wells’ famous novel including Terror is a Man in 1959 and The Twilight People in 1971.
A title card from American International’s ‘The Island of Dr. Moreau” released in 1977.
In 1977, American international Pictures released a new version of the film starring Burt Lancaster (as Dr. Moreau) and Michael York (as Edward Braddock, the cast away). In this adaptation, Lancaster portrays a more benevolent Moreau, very different from the crazed Frankenstein-esque character played my Charles Laughton. Lancaster’s performance is argent and unforgettable. While Moreau is bitter about his being cast out of ‘civilized society’ for experiments deemed too vicious for modern science, he remains true to his course and preaches that his work can be a gateway to grater scientific milestones. As the story progresses , however, brilliance spirals into insanity and Moreau resigns himself to using Braddock as the subject of his last genetic test.
CLICK TO WATCH THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU (1977) TRAILER
WAS THAT GENIUS… OR INSANITY?
Richard Stanley directs a scene from ‘The Island of Dr. Moreau’ early in to production.
By 1992, Richard Stanley had already begun to make a mark on the film community with Hardware (1990) and Dust Devil (1992) and he was anxious to begin his newest venture, a silver screen adaptation of The Island of Dr. Moreau that would pale in comparison all others that preceded it. So grand was his vision that Stanley knew he couldn’t possibly achieve it on his own, so he sought out a studio with ambition matching his own. New Line Cinema agreed to produced the project and, teamed with Stanley, the work began.
Originally, Stanley had hopes to cast Jürgen Prochnow as Dr. Moreau, James Woods as the drunken Montgomery, and Bruce Willis in the role of the cast away, Edward Douglas. Unfortunately, complications in his divorce with Demi Moore would not allow Willis to travel to Australia, where the film would be shot, and he was forced to decline the role. In his place came Rob Morrow, from television series Northern Exposure (1990–1995) and the film Quiz Show (1994). When production became difficult – to say the absolute least – Morrow broke from his contract and the search for a new Edward Douglas began.
PROBLEM CHILD(REN)
The cast of ‘The Island of Dr. Moreau’ gather in the dining room for a scene in the film.
While Prochnow would never be the Moreau that Richard Stanley wanted, Hollywood legend Marlon Brando was given the role before anyone else had been cast. Lending his enormous ego to the difficulties on-set, Brando had alienated many of the cast members including German actor Marco Hofschneider who played M’Ling, one of Dr. Moreau’s creatures and servants about the house and compound. To make matters worse, in the wake of Bruce Willis’ departure from the project, Richard Stanley describes his introduction to Val Kilmer, who would go on to play Montgomery, as unfortunate. Kilmer proved to be an ego in competition with Brando and according to members of the cast and crew both were very difficult to work with throughout the duration of the production. With Batman Forever recently released in theaters world-wide, Kilmer had allowed fame and success to go to his head. He demanded a limited shooting schedule and an exuberant compensation to play the protagonist, Edward Douglas. Unable to meet the demand and keep him in the role he was offered, Richard Stanley proposed a swap and Val Kilmer was recast as Montgomery, thus reducing his shooting schedule by nearly 40%.
As a result, like Jürgen Prochnow, James Woods was never cast and once Rob Morrow had left the project, David Thewlis (The Harry Potter franchise) was ultimately cast as the Douglas character. Thewlis found the experience so unpleasant that he even refused to appear at the film’s premier. Stories had emerged of Val Kilmer playing harmful pranks on the crew. According to Cinematographer William A. Fraker, A.S.C., B.S.C, Val Kilmer lit a camera operator’s sideburns on fire with a cigarette during shooting. Notwithstanding, Marlon Brando’s antics which included tampering with the script (Brando was notorious for excessive ad-libbing, among other ‘creative alterations’ to multiple films), requesting that certain characters be swapped to better suit the film’s narrative, caused many disruptions and producers at New Line Cinema decided that Richard Stanley’s inexperience was to blame. Inevitably, Stanley was released from the project and Director John Frankenheimer was hired to replace him and complete the film.
WATCH THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU (1996) TRAILER HERE
CATASTROPHE
Ultimately, the film was completed and released in theaters in August 1996. It was met with scathing reviews. One critic from the San Fransisco Examiner described the movie as “exactly the kind of terrible movie that becomes legendary for its absurdity”. The critic called the film a hybrid of Apocalypse Now, Planet of the Apes, Lord of the Flies, and The Importance of Being Earnest, hypothetically casting Brando as Lady Bracknell.
Dr. Moreau delivers a newborn baby with the help of his beastly nurses and medical team.
The film is a mess piecemealed together like one of Dr. Moreau’s beasts. It certainly has it’s problems and is the collected visions of at least a dozen people trying to clean up what was left at the heels of a defeated Richard Stanley who, had he been allowed to complete his dream-film, I’m sure would have constructed a perfectly balanced masterpiece that would have changed the fate of the unfortunate bastardized feature we know today.
Stanley explains his vision for a story that takes place in the not-so-distant future where, he believes, H.G. Wells would have set the story had he written it today.
In Lost Souls: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau, Stanley described the novel as a story of things yet to come, rather than events that have already occurred. He explains that Moreau was ahead of his time and verging on new science as vivisection, a method of modern science, was still very young at the turn of the century and still extremely controversial; hence, Wells’ fascination with writing a science fiction story about it.
The beast folk take over the island in drunken merriment and savage celebration.
Richard Stanley envisioned all manner of beast roaming the island freely as a heavily populated and intricately civilized society that has assimilated itself into the modern world while still existing under the dictatorship of Moreau’s law. Dr. Moreau, himself, was to be characterized as a God figure, bearing shoulder-length hair and a beard while Montgomery was to be portrayed as a war veteran strung-out on a kooky cocktail of drugs and alcohol and sleeping with numerous female members of the beast people. Prendick’s role was never fully divulged by Stanley, but given his intricate attention to detail and penchant for great storytelling I can only imagine that seeing the world of Dr. Moreau though the cast away’s eyes would have made this a spastic and surreal trip into the manic maelstrom of life that exists on the remote island in the Pacific.
WATCH THE TRAILER FOR LOST SOULS: THE DOOMED JOURNEY OF RICHARD STANLEY’S ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU
SO, WHY ADAPT THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU FOR THE STAGE?
The Beast Folk parade a recently deceased Moreau body back to the House of Pain.
The Island of Dr. Moreau is a dismal journey that explores what happens when a brilliant scientist chooses to transcend the laws of nature in the name of discovery. The story possesses a balance of madness and sorrow. Told through the eyes of an outsider, The Island of Dr. Moreau offers a voyeuristic view into the bizarre and incomprehensible. It’s like peering through the veil and spying on estranged lovers who fuck if only to keep up appearances. You’re bound to see things that you probably shouldn’t have – things that no one was really meant to see. It’s an uncomfortable and disquieting, rocky story that pushes the bar beyond what others would call that absolute boundary of what is acceptable.
The Island of Dr. Moreau is one of the modern world’s first great horrors in literature and I seek to capture that same essence in front of a live audience, not simply for shock value, but because while the grotesque is rendered to an audience in the guise of art, it is only ever used to shock the senses in spite of storytelling. This is typically perpetrated by film or television, but has most likely bled through the crack and seeped its way onto a live stage.
In the case of The Island of Dr. Moreau, the shock is blended into the thread of the story itself. It encapsulates that fear we all feel when we stare too long into the darkest corner of an unlit room and pours it out for the reader in the words of a person who cannot comprehend what his eyes are showing him. Imagine experiencing fear in realtime as it is being depicted before you by a living person – not memorex. Like Prendick’s reluctant journey into the unknown, so are daring to allow our own vulnerability to take control of us and loose upon our imaginations an incredible and outlandish experience that we could only concoct in our nightmares.
The beasts will be unleashed and the only thing separating them from us is that intangible fourth wall we build between us and the actions transpiring fifteen feet from the ticket-holder’s reach.
Thanks for reading, everyone! I hope you’ve enjoyed this rant as much as I’ve enjoyed spewing it. Please, visit again soon and feel free to leave your comments and questions. Feedback is always welcome.
Yours in words,
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