The Solo Collective Presents ‘The Seriously Neurotic Dream of Mary Shelley’

Juliana Jurenas

In the words written by author Mary Shelley herself, “There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand.” If you take these words out of Shelley’s infamous “Frankenstein” and use them through her perspective, you get “The Seriously Neurotic Dream of Mary Shelley.” A world premiere event, “The Seriously Neurotic Dream of Mary Shelley,” is a one-woman show directed by Jane Morris and produced by The Solo Collective, which is playing three nights this December at the VS. Theatre.

The Solo Collective is a company driven to unify award-winning solo artists of the Los Angeles area. Each artist in The Solo Collective works collectively to help one’s solo-project get on its feet, with support from other members in the company. The company produces solo-performance pieces throughout the year. One of these pieces is by artist Carla Cackowski.

Carla Cackowski is a writer/actor whose ability to perform one-woman shows is not a new skill. She has written four solo-performance pieces, which have successfully ran all over the Los Angeles area, many of her shows featured in the Hollywood Fringe Festival. “The Seriously Neurotic Dream of Mary Shelley,” marks her fifth original show. With a background in comedy troupes like Second City LA, Upright Citizens Brigade and iO West, her skills to captivate audiences through monologues are uncanny.

In “The Seriously Neurotic Dream of Mary Shelley,” Shelley finds herself in the unwanted presence of “a room of accomplished men” daring her to write a scary story. With writer’s block deterring her mind from any sort of creative flow, she falls into a deep sleep, which has her confronting all life’s insecurities through a dream. To the public, Mary Shelley was a writer, but she was also an angry sister, a horrible girlfriend and a disinterested mother.

Carla Cackowski takes you through the different stages of Mary Shelley’s brain, where she will have you asking questions alongside her exploration of the different sides of herself…much like a Doctor Frankenstein we all know.

Fall asleep, if you dare, with Mary Shelley in ‘The Serious Neurotic Dream of Mary Shelley‘ on Dec. 7, 9 and 14. Tickets are available online.