Watch this video presentation of the play :

Frankenstein

by Paul Stebbings & Phil Smith inspired by the novel by Mary Shelley and the Hollywood movie

Mary Shelley (1797-1851) is best known for her horror novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818). She was married to poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Boris Karloff as the Monster in Frankenstein, the 1931 Hollywood movie.

Scene 1

An introductory lecture by the Science Professor Fleischflayer is interrupted by the student Victor Frankenstein who challenges the Professor’s materialist beliefs with his own faith in a human soul. Frankenstein is humiliated by the superior knowledge and wit of the Professor.

Scene 2

In Professor Fleischflayer’s laboratory at Ingolstadt University, the Professor’s daughter, Elizabeth, is helped out by Victor Frankenstein, who is attracted to her. Victor tries to ‘seduce’ Elizabeth away from her father’s materialist and unromantic notions - he suspects that she holds such views but is silent about them for her father’s sake. An ape gets holds of a bottle of ether and drugs Victor, when he comes round he takes advantage of Elizabeth’s concern to profess his love. This is interrupted by the Professor. Victor asks for Elizabeth’s hand. As a test and challenge the Professor recruits Victor to help in an experiment - the revival of the ape with electricity. The ape is killed and then revived, but only briefly - insufficient electricity. Elizabeth suggests reviving a cobra. During this attempt the Professor is bitten and dies, passing on his scientific mission to Victor (who is becoming increasingly convinced by the professor’s ideas) and Elizabeth. But Elizabeth has been horrified by the experiment, as Victor has been excited by it, and when Victor suggests using electricity to revive her father Elizabeth makes Victor promise to give up such science and find a new a career.

Scene 3

An atheist student is lynched by a mob of townspeople. Victor - now studying medicine - sees this and later sees the corpse briefly dance when struck by lightning. Victor recruits the gravedigger Igor to seek out corpses to revive the Professor’s experiments.

Scene 4

Elizabeth is in bed. Her dream appears : a strange hybrid figure : dressed in the Professor’s tailcoat, the body of the ape, half of his head is cat and out of the top sticks an enormous butterfly wing, one of his arms is the Cobra. Elizabeth gets out of bed and starts to search for Victor.

Scene 5

In the laboratory Victor is constructing the Monster from dead body parts. He sends Igor of to find a new head. Then exits. Elizabeth appears, worried that Victor has re-started the experiments and is found by Igor who incompetently lets her in. Victor enters, has Elizabeth drugged and put into one of the cages while he continues the Monster’s completion and then revival. The monster comes to life, but unexpectedly fixates on Elizabeth. Victor is horrified by the deathliness of his creation – argues with Elizabeth whether to destroy it. Eventually, Igor is left to kill the Monster, but bungles the job and the Monster kills him and escapes. Elizabeth and victor discover the Monster has gone and vow to destroy it.

Scene 6

A clothes line. The Monster appears and steals clothes from the line. A Washerwoman appears and sees him. In trying to quieten her, the Monster accidentally crushes her to death and runs off. Victor – seeking the Monster - arrives to discover the Washerwoman dead. A passerby sees Victor with blood on hands and Victor is arrested for murder.

Scene 7

In the gaol Victor professes his innocence, but his story of a Monster is not believed.

Scene 8

On the edge of the town - the Monster, now clothed gains some solace in the sunlight and the woods. He comes upon the cottage of a Blind Woman and his daughter. When the Monster hears the occupants approaching he hides and watches the gentle routine of the couple, learning from their conversations, hymns and prayers. When the Blind woman is alone the Monster comes out of his hiding place and talks to her, using the language he has overheard. But when the daughter returns she sees the Monster and starts screaming. Trying to quieten her he kills the daughter, running off when he realizes what he has done.

Scene 9

Monster runs through forest, pursued by the sounds of the mob.

Scene 10

Courtroom. Judge pronounces Victor guilty of murder.

Scene 11

Elizabeth has been forcibly removed from the gaol, still protesting Victor’s innocence. She becomes aware that the Monster is watching her from the shadows. Elizabeth rails at the Monster and challenges him to kill her. She abuses him for being unable to help his creator. Monster exits.

Scene 12

Victor’s cell. The gaoler laughs at Victor for his Monster ‘story’. The Monster appears and smashes down the doors of the prison, carrying off Victor.

Scene 13

Up in the snow covered alps, the Monster and Victor talk. The Monster blames the treatment he has been given by people and the lack of help from his creator as the reasons for his violence. Victor will have none of this and says that responsibility for the crimes lies with the Monster. So, the Monster threatens Elizabeth – offering to leave her and Victor alone only if Victor will make the Monster a living-dead mate. Victor, reluctantly agrees, on condition that the two monsters withdraw from any contact with humans

Scene 14

Back at his home, Victor recruits Elizabeth to making the Monster’s mate.

Scene 15

Cemetery. Victor and Elizabeth are digging up bodies, but unable to find any usable body parts. A young female mourner approaches and Victor and Elizabeth argue over whether to kill her and use her body. When the mourner seems to escape the Monster emerges from the shadows and kills the young woman. The three run from the cemetery with the corpse, with the townspeople in pursuit.

Scene 16

The lab. Trying to revive the Monster’s ‘bride’. Elizabeth is accidentally shot by the mob. Victor revives her instead of the young mourner, but the Monster claims her as his promised bride and the revived Elizabeth expresses her preference for the Monster. They escape as the mob enters with burning torches and Victor perishes in the fire.