Title: Mary Shelley in Switzerland
Materials: Embroidered cotton, tulle, metal, book
Date: Exhibit in tandem with City Gate Productions’ “Frankenstein”, October 2024

Concept: Mary Wollstonecraft  Godwin was 17 when she met and ran away with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, then 22.  The pair were joined by Mary’s half-sister Claire when they ended up in Switzerland at Lord Byron’s villa on Lake Geneva two years later. It was a famously dreary “wet, ungenial summer” and over 3 days in June the party turned to telling one another German ghost stories then finally Lord Byron suggesting that they all write their own, as a sort of contest. 

This was the genesis of Frankenstein (or The Modern Prometheus), an enduring gothic novel written by an 18-year-old, unwed mother in the company of great literary poets during the summer of 1816 in the Alps.

I read Frankenstein a long time ago and realized on my most recent re-reading that I had not read it at all.  For example, there is no Igor the hunched back googly-eyed assistant (in the form of Marty Feldman) nor was the creature flat headed and green. Re-reading it as an adult I found myself having more compassion for the monster and empathized with his loneliness. 

I would like to thank City Gate Productions for inviting me to join the conversation in the retelling of this tale.  It has been fun to see this production come to life and to experience the workings of the theater world.