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The Tragedy of Frankenstein is styled after a classic Greek drama and
incorporates the use of a Chorus Master and his Chorus of Imps to recount the tragic events surrounding Victor Frankenstein and his quest to create life. The play remains faithful to Mary Shelley's novel, but makes use of such theatrical conventions as choral chants, iambic pentameter, and multiple sceneswithin-a-scene to underscore moral, ethical, political, and theological issues as relevant today as they were in Shelley's time.
Burrell said the first act focuses primarily on Victor and his obsession to create life where life does not exist. Though at ...Read More
The Tragedy of Frankenstein is styled after a classic Greek drama and
incorporates the use of a Chorus Master and his Chorus of Imps to recount the tragic events surrounding Victor Frankenstein and his quest to create life. The play remains faithful to Mary Shelley's novel, but makes use of such theatrical conventions as choral chants, iambic pentameter, and multiple sceneswithin-a-scene to underscore moral, ethical, political, and theological issues as relevant today as they were in Shelley's time.
Burrell said the first act focuses primarily on Victor and his obsession to create life where life does not exist. Though at first successful, Victor soon perceives flaws in his creation and resorts to physical and mental mistreatment as a release for his frustrations in a classic example of child abuse. Victor's creation flees and the first act ends with the mysterious death of Victor's younger brother.
The second act continues the line of values questioning set forth in the first act by consciously shifting focus to the creature's point of view. Wandering, lost in the woods, a blind and aged carpenter befriends him. Hidden from the old man's daughter and son-in-law, the creature enjoys the old man's company while learning to read and speak. This idyllic existence does not last for long, however, and the creature is forced to flee once again after reliving the creation in Victor's lab during a nightmarish sequence which includes flashbacks of his former life. The creature vows vengeance on Victor setting up the final deadly confrontation where the created shall demand of the creator, "Who Am I?"
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