ENGLISH writer Nick Dear is betting that not many people would have read Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein”.

Dear is the formidable playwright who also won a BAFTA for his screen adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Persuasion” and, in his Frankenstein play, coming soon to The Street Theatre, he is credited with giving The Creature a voice.

This original tale was conceived on a dark and stormy night by Lake Geneva when Mary, her husband-to-be, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, his doctor John Polidori and Lord Byron competed to write the best horror tale.

Mary’s became one of the most famous stories in the world, yet most people don’t know the difference between Dr Victor Frankenstein and the “creature”, “monster”, “fiend” or “wretch”, that he creates.

That’s not so surprising, Dear tells “CityNews” by phone from London.

“It’s a novel written by a passionate high-school student and most versions in the cinema don’t give status to any of the ideas in it,” he says.

Frankly, much of the book is dull, “written by an 18-to-19-year-old girl who had a great central idea, but didn’t have enough experience to bring it to life,” he says.

But Dear had realised that the great central debate between Victor and The Creature, (“Man and his God”) and the pages where The Creature tells the story from his own point of view would drive his new “Frankenstein” play.

His adaptation of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” premiered at the National Theatre in 2011 in a production directed by Danny Boyle, but we’ll see the Ensemble Theatre version directed by Mark Kilmurry, with original music by Elena Kats-Chernin.

Dear is intrigued by Mary. The precocious daughter of the political philosopher William Godwin and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, she grew up in a household surrounded by the left-leaning intellectuals of her age, debating Rousseau’s ideas that man is born free. She also became absorbed in scientific debates. As well, by the time she wrote “Frankenstein,” she was “almost always pregnant, asking herself, what will I give birth to and will I be able to love it?”

“I didn’t want to do the three-hour Dickensian epic teeming with characters,” says Dear.

He and Boyle stumbled on the idea of telling the story from the point of view of The Creature.

“I thought there was no reason why we couldn’t start with a feeling of the creation, the slave… then a hot political topic… we see clearly his aspiration to be part of society and how he is thwarted at every turn,” he says.

Dear has attempted a “level of evenness” between Frankenstein and The Creature, “otherwise it’s always going to be the monster people want to play.”

In the original production, the roles were alternated, but the Ensemble Theatre won’t be doing that.

No problem, Dear says. “It’s very enjoyable when you see a play you’ve written done in different ways. I take it as a great compliment.”

Nick Dear’s “Frankenstein”, The Street Theatre, May 7-11, bookings to 6247 1223 or thestreet.org.au