How does someone become a monster? It is an uncomfortable question, and Monster Made has no intention of allowing us to look away. This captivating psychological two-hander introduces us to Amanda Crowley, an unyielding criminal defence lawyer who refuses to be intimidated by Thomas Duncan, a man accused of a horrific mass murder. Duncan is guilty. There is little doubt about that, and Amanda knows the case is lost. Yet she wants it anyway – not to win, but to understand how someone can become capable of such monstrous acts, and whether understanding might be the first step towards changing something.
The entire play takes place within the confines of a solitary interview cell. In a Fringe venue where noises off are normally an occupational hazard, they become an unexpected asset. Voices and sounds from outside the room seep through the walls, creating the unsettling impression that we really are deep inside some high-security wing of a particularly grim prison.
Grim it is. There is a trigger warning for Monster Made, and it is emphatically deserved. Its themes of mass murder, brutal child abuse, racism and psychopathic tendencies inevitably summon memories of real-life atrocities. Depending on your age, Manchester, Dunblane and Hungerford may spring painfully to mind. There is also plenty of profanity.
But this isn’t gratuitous horror. Much of the power comes from restraint. At its heart, Monster Made is a classic two-hander – an exercise in psychological chess between a lawyer trying to understand and a man who has committed the unthinkable. Outbursts punctuate long stretches of controlled, claustrophobic dialogue, making the moments when the temperature rises all the more disturbing.
There is an uncomfortable cleverness to the central premise. It is tempting to regard Duncan as some entirely different species of human being, safely separated from ourselves by an unbridgeable genetic and moral chasm. Frankly, I have more genetic similarity with a kiwifruit than I do with this guy. But then again, so do we all. That is precisely where Monster Made gets under the skin.
Amanda’s attempt to understand Duncan forces us to contemplate the uncomfortable possibility that monsters are not necessarily born fully formed. They are made. Staring into the abyss always carries the risk that the abyss will stare back. Monster Made takes that risk – and makes for deeply unsettling, compelling theatre.
