It was, literally, a dark and stormy night when the novel Frankenstein was “born.” Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (soon to be Mary Shelley) began telling her tale of the Modern Prometheus and a prideful doctor’s downfall on a bet during a cold summer night in the company of her soon-to-be husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, Dr. John Polidori, and Claire Clairmont on the shore of Lake Geneva. The ghost story competition that summer yielded the beginnings of a classic horror/science fiction novel — and the Indiana Repertory Theatre has skillfully blended both the origin and the story into their production of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
As the first production of the 51st season, and the first under the new Margot Lacy Eccles Artistic Director Ben Hanna, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is big and bold, exploring the emotionally complicated real world of the Romantic titans of literature, Shelley and Byron, their lovers Mary and Claire, and the good doctor (whose vampire story was later published and served as the inspiration for Bram Stoker). Their story blends into the fictional story of Victor Frankenstein and his Creature. First loved by the doctor but then abandoned and despised, the story is told through subtle visual cues and projections that move the audience between the two worlds.
Rebecca Marie Hurd portrays Mary, as well as the fictional love of Dr. Frankenstein Elizabeth with a blend of sophistication and innocence. Shelley and Dr. Frankenstein are played by Ty Fanning, conveying both pride and foolishness. Lord Byron and the Creature are played by Nate Santana with wild abandon, and Terry Bell adds the observer’s perspective in his portrayal of John Polidori and Henry. Overall, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a meditation on a man’s monstrous pride and the consequences of it.
If you’re looking to get in the mood for the scary season, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein at the IRT will give you plenty to be frightened about: the human cost of acting on ego and arrogance and the limits of humanity. David Catlin’s adaptation of the novel and backstory is a nicely blended script from the original book and imagining that fateful night with five bored creative people with stories to tell.
The show will be on stage through Oct. 14. Tickets are $25 and up, and reservations can be made online at irtlive.com or by calling 317-635-5252.
