Lawrence C. Connolly

Tag: Mary Shelley

  • Creating Frankenstein:
    Now Available at Scripts for Stage

    Temperatures drop. Snow falls. Time to hole up inside, light a fire, and catch up on the latest books and movies. Or … if you’re a 21st-century scop … it might be a good time to take the Lord Byron stormy-night challenge and get to work on that novel or script you’ve been thinking about.…

  • Frankenstein Week:
    Print, Audio, & Video Previews

    If this past weekend was Frankenstein Weekend (see my previous post if you have any doubts about that), then this week must be Frankenstein week. At least it looks that way judging from the advanced media attention that Prime Stage Theatre’s all-new production of Frankenstein has been getting. Out today are previews from three of…

  • Frankenstein: The Creation Scene

    Sutured body parts, flashing electrodes, bubbling chemicals–they’re some of the best-known elements of the Frankenstein creation scene. And none are in the novel. For over 200 years, playwrights, screenwriters, comic artists, and (more recently) game designers have endeavored to fill in the blanks of a process that Mary Shelley’s narrative covers in fewer than 100…

  • On a Night in November…
    Shelley’s “Hideous Progeny” Comes Alive

    “It was on a dreary night of November, that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils.” So begins the creation scene in the book that The Guardian calls one of the top 10 novels of all time. And this November, that scene and more will come alive as Prime Stage Theatre premieres the first production…

  • Thinking Like a Writer: Finding the Words

    For Mark Twain, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” For Mary Shelley, it is the difference between creature and being. We can see her deliberation in the excerpt (at left) of her Frankenstein manuscript, where she makes a choice that best…

  • One Night in Geneva:
    The Birth of a Prosperous Progeny

    In 1831, her first novel having achieved pop-culture status thanks to a string of adaptations in England, Europe, and America (see last week’s post), Mary Shelley introduced the second edition of Frankenstein by writing: “Once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper.” Little could she have foreseen just how prosperous it would…