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The Arts Intel Report

Frankenstein

Wei Wang in Liam Scarlett’s Frankenstein.

Oct 12–22, 2023
10 E Randolph Street, Chicago, IL 60601, United States

“Remember,” says the monster that was created and then rejected by Dr. Frankenstein, “that I am thy creature: I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded.” The story is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, the gothic novel that celebrated its 200th anniversary in 2018. Shelley was much influenced by galvanism, a 19th-century practice that involved the stimulation of dead muscle with electric currents. Animation of the body, of course, is a perfect subject for ballet, as is the wide gap between the grotesque and the angelic. The Joffrey Ballet is performing the late Liam Scarlett’s version of Frankenstein, which he choreographed to an original score by Lowell Liebermann. —Laura Jacobs

Photo: © Erik Tomasson/courtesy of the San Francisco Ballet