Skip to Content

The Arts Intel Report

Frankenstein

Oct 12–19, 2023
2 E South St, Raleigh, NC 27601, USA

“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 influential novel that celebrated its 200th anniversary in 2018. Shelley was much influenced by galvinism, 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 choreography here is by Zalman Raffael, the artistic director of the Carolina Ballet. The commissioned score by J. Mark Scearce is appropriately gothic. —Laura Jacobs