Lawrence C. Connolly's Blog, page 11

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 … [read more at The 21st-Century Scop.]

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 words at the beginning of Chapter V.

Above: The creation scene as presented in the graphic novel Doc Frankenstein, created by Geof Da...

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 of its 2022-23 season–an all-new adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Left: Preproduction makeup-and-effects test with Everett Lowe as the Creature in Prime Stage’s Frankenstein.

[More at The 21s...

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 of its 2022-23 season–an all-new adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

As the premiere approaches, I’ve been doing interviews and appearances as well as working with the cast and crew as they striv...

A Week of Readings:HWA, Frankenstein, & Mystery Theatre

The last time I posted about the Pittsburgh Chapter of the Horror Writers Association was back in the halcyon days of 2019 (read that post here) when the effects of pandemics were relegated to films like … [read more at The 21st-Century Scop].

A Week of Readings:HWA, Frankenstein, & Mystery Theatre

The last time I posted about the Pittsburgh Chapter of the Horror Writers Association was back in the halcyon days of 2019 (read that post here) when the effects of pandemics were relegated to films like Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion (2011) or books like John Scalzi’s Lock In (2014) and Stephen King’s The Stand (1978).

Back then, the possibility of a time when Zoom readings would become the primary (perhaps the only) practical venue for authors to meet and share their works never crossed my min...

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 reflects the book she intends to write. For her, the novel’s artificial human was not simply a creature. That word, which means something created, usually refers to animals. ...

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 become, going forth to spawn countless stage, screen, and print adaptations.

All this month, and concluding with this special installment in honor of Mary She...

T. P. Cooke’s Demon:The First Pop-Culture “Frankenstein”

An explosion. Fire and smoke. Laboratory doors shatter. The Demon appears in a blast of red flame!

That’s how the Frankenstein monster made its entrance in the first dramatic adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel.

Loosely adapted by Richard Brinsley Peake and starring actor T. P. Cooke as the monster (referred to as “The Demon” in the stage notes), Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein (1823) became an instant sensation that transformed Shelley’s book (which until then had only been available i...

A Child and a Monster go to the Lake, or …“What shall we throw in now?”

Set in central Spain shortly after the Spanish revolution, Victor Erice’s film The Spirit of the Beehive opens with the children of a rural village watching James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931). Two of the children, sisters Ana and Isabelle, watch wide-eyed as the monster encounters a young girl by a mountain lake. It’s the same scene you’ll find restaged for laughs in Mel Brook’s Young Frankenstein (1974), but here it’s played straight. The result is at once moving and confounding, leaving the vie...