"Frankenstein: Mary Shelley's
Dream"
From Frankenstein: Or a Modern Prometheus, by Mary Shelley
Adapted For Object Theater by The Bakken Library and Museum
© The Bakken, 2000
Use of this entire script for educational purposes is ok without
prior consent,
please give The Bakken credit and show our copyright "© The
Bakken 2000".
Scene One
VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN'S LABORATORY MIDNIGHT
Sounds of a thunderstorm. Flashes of lightning from a Gothic window
intermittently illuminate Frankenstein's laboratory.
|
VICTOR |
I worked hard for nearly two years, depriving myself
of rest and health, for the sole purpose of infusing
life into an inanimate body.
|
The engines of creation bang and crackle. Electrical
charges zing across the lab from different directions. After a final
series of lights and static, the laboratory settles into darkness and
silence. A soft heartbeat begins and grows louder . . .
|
VICTOR |
But now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished,
and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.
|
Scene Two
LABORATORY DAWN
The morning light gradually reveals the wizardry of late 18th-century science - coils,
jars, various instruments, books, anatomy posters, chemical charts, etc.
|
VICTOR |
My name is Victor Frankenstein. I was born in Geneva, Switzerland.
When I was seventeen, I was sent to the great University
of Ingolstadt. I was an ardent student, my restless mind
hungry for knowledge and new ideas. It was the mystery of
life itself that eventually became my sole occupation. How
is lifeless matter miraculously transformed into a living
being? If I could solve this mystery, what glory would attend
this discovery!
I entered into the search for the elixir of life. Winter,
spring, and summer passed in a haze of labor and fatigue.
And then a sudden light broke in upon me - a light so
brilliant, yet so simple. When I found so astonishing a power
placed within my hands, I hesitated. Should I attempt the
creation of a being like myself? But so excited was I, that
any doubts were easily overcome.
So it was that on a dreary night in November, I beheld the
accomplishment of my toils. I collected the instruments of
life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into
the lifeless thing that lay at my feet.
|
Night falls, the storm resumes, and with it the flashes
of lightning and sounds of Frankenstein's apparatus.
|
VICTOR |
By the glimmer of the nearly burnt out candle, I saw the
dull yellow eye of the creature open and his limbs begin
to stir. Now animated with life his appearance was hideous,
a grotesque parody of human beauty. I fled in terror from
the creature I created and left him to find his own way in
the world.
|
Sounds of the instruments of creation. Hideous,
glowing eyes appear and the Creature's limbs stir.
Scene Three
GLACIER AT CHAMOUNIX MIDDAY
Laboratory fades out slowly. An alpine landscape gradually materializes.
|
VICTOR |
That night I slept the sleep of the wicked, my dreams animated
with scenes so terrible that I awoke in a teeth-chattering
sweat. The next days were no better. Eventually, I sank into
a nervous fever. Months later, when my convalescence was
almost complete, I sought renewal on a walking trip through
the nearby mountain valleys.
|
(crunching through the snow)
It was nearly noon when I reached the top of the
Montanvert glacier. As I looked out over the sea of ice, I suddenly
beheld the figure of a man advancing towards me at superhuman speed.
A faintness seized me! It was the wretch whom I had created!
|
CREATURE
(approaching Victor) |
Be calm! I am thy creature, and I will be mild and docile
if you will also perform thy part. Everywhere I see bliss,
from which I am excluded. I entreat you to hear my tale.
|
Scene Four
MOUNTAIN HUT LATER THAT EVENING
The glacier landscape fades.Victor and the Creature sit around a crackling
fire in a dimly lit hut..
|
CREATURE |
I have only the dimmest memory of my first hours of life.
I felt only light, hunger, thirst, and darkness. I had no
notion of my ugliness until I first met people. They shrank
from me in fear and disgust or drove me away with sticks.
So I stayed out of sight and watched them from a distance - hoping
that by learning their ways I might one day make friends.
I found that people communicated their feelings to one another
by sounds. So I applied myself to acquiring the art of language.
I learned to speak.
At last I was ready to approach a kindly farm family whose
goodness I had observed. I imagined that they would be disgusted,
until by my gentle demeanor, I should first win their favor,
and afterwards their love. But I was mistaken. I was beaten
and run off. Was man so virtuous and magnificent, yet so
vicious and base? And what was I? A fatherless, motherless,
unhappy wretch!
And then I found papers from your laboratory in my pocket.
Unfeeling, heartless creator! Why did you form a monster
so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? Why did
you cast me out an object for the scorn and horror of mankind?
So I come to you now.
|
|
VICTOR |
Monster! Fiend! I will not pity you. You have killed and
done great evil in your senseless revenge against me.
|
|
CREATURE |
I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make
me happy, and I shall again be virtuous. You must create
a female for me, as hideous as myself, with whom I can live.
We shall be monsters, cut off from the world, but attached
to each other. If you consent, neither you nor any other
human being shall ever see us again.
|
|
VICTOR
(horrified) |
Create another like yourself to desolate the world? I refuse
it!
|
|
CREATURE |
What I ask of you, my creator, is reasonable and moderate.
If any being felt emotions of love towards me, I should return
them a hundred-fold.
|
|
VICTOR |
I think of my beloved Elizabeth, my future wife.
Without her I would have no hope of happiness. I have no right
to withhold this from you. I consent to your demand.
|
Scene Five
LABORATORY EVENING
|
VICTOR |
During my first experiment, a kind of enthusiastic frenzy
had blinded me to the horror of my employment. But now I
went to it in cold blood, and my heart often sickened at
the work of my hands. He has sworn to quit the neighborhood
of man, where he had killed and terrified innocent souls
--- but she, his mate, had not. Now, for the first time,
the wickedness of my promise burst upon me; had I the right
to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations? I decided
to destroy her.
|
The laboratory darkens as we hear the sounds of Frankenstein
breaking his equipment. A howling comes from outside. The Creature
appears at the window.
|
CREATURE |
Why shall each man find a wife for his bosom, and each
beast have his mate, and I be alone? Remember, I shall be
with you on your wedding night!
|
Scene Six
ICE-BOUND SHIP EVENING
A desolate wasteland of ice appears through the cabin window of a ship.
|
VICTOR |
The fiend was true to his word. He killed my lovely Elizabeth
and fled. Every hope for my future happiness gone, I vowed
to destroy my monstrous creation. I followed his trail for
many months across the northern wilds of Russia and then
onto the endless, mountainous ices of the oceans. I was adrift
on an ice floe when I saw an ice-bound ship. Now I lie dying
in its cabin thinking of all that has happened.
|
A candle illuminates Victor's form lying in a berth.
|
VICTOR
(dying) |
Farewell! Seek happiness in tranquility, avoid ambition,
even the innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science.
Why do I say this? I myself have been blasted in these hopes,
yet another may succeed.
|
Victor breathes his last breath as the Arctic scene
fades. A moment of darkness.
Scene Seven
|
ICE-BOUND SHIP EVENING
CREATURE
(bursting into the room) |
When I discovered that you hoped for a happiness from which
I was forever barred, then envy and bitterness filled me
with an insatiable thirst for vengeance. But am I to be thought
the only criminal, when all human kind sinned against me?
You sought my extinction, that I may not cause greater wretchedness.
Now, I shall consume to ashes this miserable frame, that
its remains afford no light to any curious wretch, who would
create another such as I have been.
|
Darkness. A moment of silence.
Scene Eight
MARY SHELLEY'S DESK DUSK
Mary Shelley's writing desk is revealed.
|
MARY |
How did I write such a story? How could a young girl think
of so very hideous an idea? There were four of us that wet
summer in Switzerland, and after sharing some German tales
of the supernatural, Lord Byron issued this challenge: "We
will each of us write a ghost story." I busied myself
to think of one to curdle the blood and quicken the beatings
of the heart. I recalled our past talk of scientific experiments.
Perhaps a corpse could be reanimated: galvanism had given
token of such things.
When we retired to rest I did not sleep nor think. I saw
with shut eyes the pale student kneeling beside the thing
he had put together. I opened my eyes in terror and thought, "I
have found it!" and I began to write of my waking dream.
|
Slow fade to darkness.
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