Monster
Monster
Neal Bell
“MONSTER, a slick and streamlined new stage adaptation of the Frankenstein saga written by Neal Bell is faithful to Shelley, if not in all the exhaustive details, then at least insofar as it seizes on its thematic highlights. Bell’s adaptation plucks the major events from the narrative, and his language treads a colorful a mixture of fanciful poetics, glib wisecrackery and an occasional Anglo-Saxon obscenity that lends a contemporary tint to things.” — Bruce Weber, The New York Times
“A lean literate version of Shelley’s often much-embroidered classic. Exploring Shelley’s psychosexual undertones, Bell’s version is more creepy than shocking in effect. He also provides a viable new conclusion for the novel’s open-ended narrative.” — Michael Sommers, The Star-Ledger
“Starting from Shelley’s original, but with a sharp eye for cogency and a sharp ear for the turn of a phrase, [Neal Bell] has managed to locate the philosophic germ inside each of the horror myth’s iconic scenes. The scare is still there, but it now has other functions than merely frightening your inner child with fantasies of impotence, rape and castration on a dark and stormy night. If you really want to frighten yourself, there’s always today’s paper; if you want a dramatic story that makes you think about the meaning and purpose of life, you should probably go and see MONSTER.” — Michael Feingold, Village Voice
Available
2003
English
978-0-88145-228-0
Drama
Broadway Play Publishing Inc.
Neal Bell
Neal Bell’s plays, including “Spatter Pattern” (Edgar Award), “Monster”, “Two Small Bodies”, “Raw Youth”, “Cold Sweat”, “Ready for the River”, “Ragged Dick”, “On the Bum”, and “Somewhere in the Pacific”, have appeared at Playwrights Horizons and Classic Stage Company in New York, and at regional theatres including Berkeley Repertory, Mark Taper Forum, South Coast Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, and Actors Theater of Louisville, where his ten-minute play “Out the Window” was a co-winner of the 1990 Heideman Award.
Bell has been a playwright-in-residence at the Yale School of Drama, and has taught playwriting at New York University, Playwrights Horizons Theater School, and the 42nd Street Collective. He is currently a member of the Theater Department faculty at Duke University. A recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment, and the Guggenheim Foundation, Neal Bell was awarded an Obie Award in 1992 for sustained achievement in playwriting.
