Ballet Pensacola Reimagines “Frankenstein”

Arts & Culture

This month, Inweekly has focused on the arts with Fall Arts and Fall Festivals issues. This week, we profile poet Ericka Streeter.

On “Rick’s Blog Live,” I interviewed internationally acclaimed choreographer Gonzalo Galguera, who is the guest choreographer as Ballet Pensacola opens its 48th season with a new two-act production of Frankenstein, running October 2–4, at the Clark Family Cultural Center.

And Galguera is not staging the movie-monster version most audiences already know.

“For me, it’s more than only the monster,” Galguera told me. “For me, it’s really a deeply human story.”

“Who is the monster? I like to leave open this question. That’s why we go to the theatre.” — Gonzalo Galguera

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The biggest departure from Shelley’s novel is where Galguera chose to begin. In the original 1818 book, Victor creates and abandons the Creature years before his wedding to Elizabeth, who is later murdered by the Creature on their wedding night. Galguera reverses that order entirely.

That single structural choice changes the entire moral shape of the story. Instead of a scientist punished for his hubris, Galguera’s Victor is a man undone by grief first—the creation of life becomes an act of mourning as much as ambition.

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On the stage, that idea starts with movement itself. Galguera pointed out that dance and the Creature’s own journey mirror each other in a basic way.

“The monster starts to move before he starts to speak. Dance is the same. We move before we start to speak.” — Gonzalo Galguera

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“If something touched the people — a little moment, some situation — and they say, ‘I couldn’t understand it well, but something moved me.’ This is the most important thing.” — Gonzalo Galguera

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