By Susan Felder
What is it to be human? The synapses of the brain fire, we shudder and we respond from the boxes of experience and images that shape us. Or is there something more? What is innate human nature?
During the summer of 1816, 18-year old Mary Shelley arrived in Geneva with her lover, Percy Shelly, her step-sister, Claire, and Lord Byron. Mary’s beloved father condemned her relationship with the much older Shelley and rejected his daughter. The weather that summer grew dim. Mary writes: “The thunder storms that visit us are grander and more terrific than I have ever seen before.” Forced indoors, they read German ghost stories to pass the time. Lord Byron proposes a challenge, a competition, to write the best ghost story. And in an era defined by scientific advance and exploration, isolated in the splendor of the mountains — from the mind of 18-year old Mary Shelley, Frankenstein is born.
Nick Dear’s adaptation returns in part to the Creature’s point-of-view in this classic story. The play offers questions of the nature of life and creation. In pursuing creation, where are the boundaries? And what are our responsibilities for what we create?