Canberra Rep's Dr Frankenstein at Theatre 3 twists a classic Gothic tale

The first production in Canberra Repertory Society's 2018-19 season is also the Australian premiere of a recent British play. Selma Dimitrijevic's Dr Frankenstein, which was first performed in 2017, is a new adaptation of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein with a major central twist.

"In this version, the doctor is a woman," director Jordan Best says.

Victoria - not Victor - Frankenstein (played by Jenna Roberts, who last worked with Best on Rep's Wait Until Dark, winning the 2017 CAT Award as best lead actress in a play) has no love interest in this retelling. She's a woman on the fringes of science in every sense, travelling abroad to get herself an education even though she can't graduate and engaging secretly in experiments to create life - but not in the conventional manner. Having experimented with animals, she uses her developing skills to restore life to a human corpse (MIchael Sparks).

But unlike many cinematic depictions, and going back to the novel, this creature is not an inarticulate monster, but a complex, developing being with needs of his own that must be met.

"It's about her relationship with the creature," Best says.

"It's more ambiguous than having to say he goes around killing people - one of the questions that arises from the book is - IS he a monster?"

The play, she says, is "Gothic horror - very fun to play with" and features original music by Matt Webster, who set poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary's husband.

Roberts is a woman of science herself with a doctorate in environmental chemistry and identifies strongly with the story and many of its themes, even though it takes place in the 1830s, an era when science and medicine were not what they are today - indeed, she says religion and superstition played a large part in their practice.

"When I heard Dr Frankenstein was on, I had to audition," Roberts says.

"Frankenstein is one of my favourite novels of all time ...Mary Shelley's writing is beautiful and the story itself is a masterpiece."

She likes the fact it was conceived by a woman and thinks this play is very true to the spirit of the story.

"You can feel that feminine voice in the original book, more so than in the other stage adaptations and the original [1931] movie - it becomes something quite different."

Roberts says Shelley struggled with the loss of her mother and was a misfit even in her own family, going against her father's wishes in her choice of husband and otherwise having a difficult time. In the play. Victoria Frankenstein's story, like the novel, has some parallels with Shelley which are explored.

A "card-carrying feminist", Roberts says she loves the idea that the play centres on an independent woman who values her own creativity despite everyone telling her she should be married and running a household.

Having a female Frankenstein, Roberts says, changes the dynamic of the world created in the play.

"There's an element of a mother giving birth to something and she becomes singularly obsessed with the creature."

But Victoria has been so caught up in the quest to stop death that she hasn't thought through all of the consequences and responsibilities of creating a new person - one who is not the same as the one who died, but not the same as a new-born infant, either.

"What I really love is that when the creature is essentially reborn ... it needs the love of a mother. What happens when it doesn't get that?"

Sparks says the creature is different, so he gets discriminated against and mistreated and eventually retaliates.

"When he is created he's like a blank slate. He's a bit like a sponge, he soaks everything in and understands - he develops layers of understanding."

He says the creature's relationship to Victoria is that of creator and creation.

"She is his creator - he believes she has the answers to questions he has: he wants to understand what it's like to be human nad has questions about why he's being treated the way he's treated ... he's obsessed with her.

"He wants to be with her, to observe and learn."

When she leaves, the creature doesn't understand why.

"Essentially, she's his mother."

Sparks - who shaved his head for the role, "the first time I've been bald since I was a baby" - says the play is "beautiful and spooky.

"People will have plenty to talk about when they leave."