Bloody Poetry

In celebration of the bicentennial of the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Little Fish Theatre presents Bloody Poetry by Howard Brenton. Opening September 27 at Little Fish Theatre and directed by Ovation Award winner and Little Fish Theatre Artistic Associate Stephanie Coltrin, Bloody Poetry plunges into the bohemian lives of Lord Byron, his mistress, and the Shelleys, and enables the audience to enter their summer Villa – a place where the poets take refuge from the upheaval of their country and turn creative writing into a collective practice of subversive intent and revolutionary ambition. It’s 1816, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Godwin Shelley and Claire Clairmont have traveled to a Villa in Lake Geneva to meet with “mad, bad and dangerous to know” Lord Byron. The Shelleys are in a self-imposed exile from England due to their radical unconventional beliefs. Byron has fled his debts and his reputation in England, having an unconventional lifestyle of his own. Arriving with his own personal doctor and biographer Dr. William Polidori, they are instantly bonded. Shelley has run away with Mary and their children, having abandoned his first wife and two children. Claire is pregnant with Byron’s child. They join together to attempt a utopian experiment where they can live with freedom from constraint. During the historical ‘year without a summer’, weather forces them indoors and Lord Byron suggests that they each write their own ghost stories. Out of those literary experiments comes one of the greatest novels the world has ever known – Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. As the summer comes to an end, love and lives are lost as each of the revolutionaries face additional hardship as they struggle with their attempts at a hedonistic metamorphosis. Bloody Poetry will run Thursdays September 27 through October 18 at 8:00pm, with two Wednesday shows on October 10 and 17 at 8:00pm and two Sunday 2:00pm matinees on September 30 and October 7. The September 30 show features a special Talkback session where the actors and creative team will be available for a post-show discussion with the audience.