Monster

A reading of Monster was presented at La Jolla Playhouse, which commissioned the work. It will receive its premiere in New York in January 2002, at the Classic Stage Company.

A play from the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

Characters

FORSTER, second-in-command of the Aurora

WALTON, young captain of the Aurora

TWO DOGS

VICTOR, a young doctor

FATHER, of Victor

MOTHER, of Victor

ELIZABETH, Victor's cousin

CAT

CLERVAL, Victor's friend

JUSTINE, a servant in Victor's household

WILLIAM, Victor's little brother

CREATURE, Victor's creation

Monster can be performed with a cast of five men and two women, with VICTOR, ELIZABETH, and the CREATURE being the three non-doubled parts, and the following doubling or tripling of these characters: FORSTER/FATHER/DOG, WALTON/CLERVAL, CAT/WILLIAM, and JUSTINE/MOTHER/DOG.

The Artic and England in the early nineteenth century. (Prop note: The Leyden jar, which appears in the thunderstorm-scene in act I, is a metal-lined glass jar, with a metal rod sticking out of the lid.)

Act I

Scene 1

On board the ship Aurora. Somewhere in the Arctic Ocean.

The young captain ROBERT WALTON stands on the deck, looking out at the polar twilight.

Lieutenant FORSTER, an older man, approaches. He watches his captain anxiously, then finally speaks.

FORSTER If we turn back now . . . (He gets no response)
Captain?

WALTON (pointing out) What do you see?

FORSTER The jaws of a trap.
And we're sailing into it.

WALTON (not disagreeing) For a moment, I thought I could just make out
the tracery of a rose window.
Through that wall of ice, the sun—
what little sun there is, blood-red,
and fading—almost gone.

FORSTER regards his captain with concern.

A cathedral.
With an empty pulpit gleaming in the final light,
a rat in search of a crumb—
Our Savior, “this is His body, take, eat”—
skitters across the altar—there,
do you hear it?

FORSTER Sir, that's drifting snow—

WALTON Tiny claws,
a tiny beating heart—
a blood-red eye, glazing over,
dimmer, and what is it thinking, Lieutenant?
What are the thoughts of a dying rat?

FORSTER It's thinking, “We've come to the end of the world, and my captain's insane, and we're all of us bloody well fucked.” Would be my guess.

Captain WALTON is jarred. FORSTER renews his appeal.

If we turn back now—

WALTON (interrupting, in mock amazement) You're on fire.
I can see the smoke of your breath—

FORSTER (trying to be patient) No, sir: if you could recover your wits, you'd feel the cold—

WALTON (ignoring)—ambition burning: “All my life, I have wanted, in some spectacular way, to fail.”

He waits for FORSTER's reaction, which doesn't come.

“Let us almost find a way, to the
Top of the World, let us come this close—
and then turn back.
We're only human.”
Like that smell.

FORSTER What smell?

WALTON The drizzly shit running down your leg.

Pause.

FORSTER (having had enough) Look at the walls of ice.
On every side of us, closing in—

WALTON Then we're already trapped.
We can't turn back.

FORSTER One channel is clear. Right behind us.

WALTON We don't have room to come around.

FORSTER (correcting) We won't, sir. After nightfall.

Pause.

WALTON The sun sets—

FORSTER In less than an hour.

WALTON And when did it rise?

FORSTER A few minutes ago.

WALTON Not much of a day.
Even less of a life.

Pause.

Shall I turn back now,
and become my father?—
nodding in front of a dying fire,
dreams burned down to cinders,
counting what I have left—a few banknotes—
never to see an unknown shore . . .

FORSTER Is a glimpse of terra incognita
worth any price? You probably think so—
being young and consequently insane—
so all of us have to die.

WALTON flinches.

Fair enough: my father told me—
“No man goes to...