Mary Shelley's Frankenstein E-Book

Mary Shelley

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

An eighteen-year-old girl, Mary Shelley, dreams up a monster whose tragic story will capture the imaginations of generations to come. A young scientist by the name of Frankenstein breathes life into a gruesome body. Banished into an indifferent world, Frankenstein's creature desperately seeks out his true identity, but the agony of rejection and a broken promise push him into darkness. Dangerous and vengeful, the creature threatens to obliterate Frankenstein and everyone he loves, in a ferocious and bloodthirsty hunt for his maker. Rona Munro's 'inventive feminist adaptation' (The Stage) of Mary Shelley's Gothic masterpiece places the writer herself amongst the action as she wrestles with her creation and with the stark realities facing revolutionary young women, then and now. It premiered on a tour of the UK in 2019.  

Leseprobe

MARY SHELLEY’S

FRANKENSTEIN

adapted for the stage by

Rona Munro

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Introduction

Original Production

Characters

Note on Text

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

About the Authors

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

IntroductionRona Munro

Above all else, I hope this play terrifies you. That’s its job.

When I was asked to think about adapting Frankenstein by Mary Godwin Shelley for the stage, my first thought was, ‘It’s been done.’ And it has been done, the novel has been adapted for stage, for screen (big and small), for animation, graphic novels, dance, comedy, tragedy and unashamed melodrama. The power of this iconic story is so great that it has been reproduced in hundreds of incarnations without ever losing its ability to unsettle an audience.

What could I add to that? What version of Frankenstein hadn’t I seen already?

I’d rarely seen a version that reminded the audience that this story was written by a woman who was eighteen when she began its creation. I’d rarely seen a version that put Mary, visible and potent, in the centre of her story as the skilled writer she was. I’d seen versions that made her presence completely invisible. I’d seen versions that dwelt on the biological and romantic version of her biography, full of the agony of miscarriage or speculative interpretations of her supposed misery at her partner’s infidelity.

Mary put none of that in the novel. She just wrote the best horror story she could and, having written it, made the best efforts she could to get it out in the world and make some money from it. In this one book she arguably created the whole genres of horror and science-fiction.

And Frankenstein is still selling.

She was – her writing and her actions prove her to have been – an incredibly gifted and courageous young woman. She chose to break most of the social and cultural rules of the society she was born into. She wrote a book which, over and over again, advocates her radical political beliefs – hers, not those of the man she eventually married, not of his friends or her own father, hers.

Mary has her own voice and her own ideas and they are very clear in the novel, the story so many people think they know. In fact, I’d argue much of what we think we know is actually just the shape of the mountain of other people’s ideas and interpretations that have been dumped on her story since it was first published.

I have a visceral aversion to analyses of a writer’s work that use what’s known of them as a person to interpret the stories they told. It seems both reductive of their skill and imagination, and patronising to their own powers of self-knowledge, as if their biography gave us, the readers and academics of posterity, a clearer idea of what a writer meant to create or managed to create than they could ever have themselves.

In Mary’s case, until very recently, the vast majority of those commentators and interpreters have been privileged and male.

So now we have two familiar views of Frankenstein. It is seen as an early Gothic novel that has been summarised and interpreted, mainly by one elitist group, as literature. Or it is a Boris Karloff fright night, that has been reinvented with a hundred different stitched-on faces, chased by Scooby Doo, a Halloween mask – a horror blockbuster that still delivers.

Neither of these interpretations of the novel capture its true power, but I think Mary would have been very happy to know she wrote a blockbuster that still delivers. She created an extraordinary narrative, the story of a monster and creator, so evocative and powerful that it can be used as a symbol and metaphor of many other things – but its intention was to terrify and unsettle. This is not an accidental intention. She knew what she was doing. Equally, her ideas, her opinions, are not buried in the narrative, awaiting academic excavation, they’re pretty clear and clearly stated. Privilege and power come with responsibility, shirk that and you’ll get what you deserve.

But what she wants you, the audience, to ‘get’ is a fright – a good story, a thought-provoking page-turner, but ultimately an unsettling experience – a chill and thrill that’ll haunt your dreams as her creation did hers. Hopefully this text lives up to her intentions.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was produced by Selladoor Productions, Matthew Townshend Productions, Belgrade Theatre Coventry and Perth Theatre at Horsecross Arts, and first performed at Perth Theatre, on 5 September 2019, before touring the UK. The cast was as follows:

MARY SHELLEY

Eilidh Loan

FRANKENSTEIN

Ben Castle Gibb

THE MONSTER

Michael Moreland

HENRY/WALTON

Thierry Mabonga

ELIZABETH/SAFIE

Natali McCleary

MOTHER/JUSTINE

Sarah MacGillivray

FATHER/MASTER/WALDMAN

Greg Powrie

Director

Patricia Benecke

Composer/Sound Designer

Simon Slater

Movement Direction

Jonnie Riordan

Set and Costume Designer

Becky Minto

Lighting Designer

Grant Anderson

Wardrobe Supervisor

Louise Robertson

Accent and Vocal Coach

Ros Steen

Dramaturg

Lu Kemp

Producer (Tour)

Maddy Mutch

Production Manager (Tour)

Gareth Edwards

Production Manager (Perth)

Gavin Johnston

Company Stage Manager

Paul Murphy

Deputy Stage Manager

Annette Burnby

Assistant Stage Manager/Wardrobe

Patrycja Jastrzebska

Chief LX

Hallam Knight

Lighting Programmer

Tamykha Patterson

Technical Swing

Kat Turkilsen

Marketing

I AM Marketing

Press

Target-Live

Photography

Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

Artwork Design

Desk Tidy Design

Lighting

Whitelight

Transport

Paul Mathew Transport

Scenery

Perth Theatre

Sound

Stage Sound Services

Characters

MARY SHELLEY, eighteen, female

FRANKENSTEIN, nineteen to twenty-two, male

THE MONSTER, can be any age or gender

ELIZABETH, fifteen to nineteen, female

SAFIE, fifteen to nineteen, female

WALTON, nineteen to twenty-two, male

HENRY, nineteen to twenty-two, male

FELIX, nineteen to twenty-two, male

WILLIAM, twelve, male

MOTHER, thirties, female

JUSTINE, thirties, female

AGATHA, thirties, female

MASTER, forties, male

FATHER, forties, male

PETER, forties, male

WALDMAN, forties, male

Plus chorus

Note on Doubling

For a smaller cast, the charcters can be doubled as follows:

ELIZABETH/SAFIE/CHORUS

WALTON/HENRY/FELIX

WILLIAM/CHORUS

MOTHER/JUSTINE/AGATHA/CHORUS

MASTER/FATHER/PETER/WALDMAN/CHORUS

NB. If a larger cast is available then these doublings could be reduced, as they are pragmatic rather than artistic.

Note on Text

The play has multiple locations and is intended to work so that characters can instantly move from one to another.

I’m imagining something spare and non-naturalistic, where all the interiors and exteriors can coexist.

There should be recurring sense of ice. Of lakes and oceans.

Of forests.

Of mainly small rooms and houses, the only large or rich interior is the Frankensteins’ home in Geneva.

All the main characters are young: at the start of the play Frankenstein is eighteen, Elizabeth is fifteen. Mary is always eighteen.

Any sound effects or visual effects are cued by Mary.