As 80s pop songs melded into a recording of Margaret Thatcher, with coloured lighting flickering over a the lone figure of Percy Shelley (Rob Monteiro) in a black velvet waistcoat, raging against the hypocrisy of British institutions, it was clear that this production of was not going to be a conventional depiction of its subjects. Howard Brenton’s 1984 play may have taken inspiration from the fraught times in which it was written, but here director Sophia Orr directly references 80s fashion and music throughout in this portrayal of 19th-century writers Shelley (here called ‘Bysshe’), Lord Byron (Eddie Adams), Mary Shelley (Irisa Kwok) and her stepsister Claire Clairmont (Emily Shelley) as they experiment with a new morality and denounce unjust political systems on the shores of Lake Geneva. I’ll start with the unique aesthetic, one of the show’s most compelling features.
The deployment of fierce pop anthems over scene transitions helped emphasise the urgency and heightened emotions of characters who could easily have come across as self-absorbed and isolated from the rest of the world. Instead, there was a frenzied, anxious energy driving the production onwards. This evolving sense of dread was aided by the dim lighting (from Li Xuan Ho) which evoked Gothic horror scenes and created intensity through bold colour choices.
Inventive use was also made of the auditorium lights towards the play’s end, as the storytelling starts to fragment and characters walk in and a.
