Frame Narrative
Title: Frame Narrative
Author: Emily Sheehan
Publisher: Produced by New Ghosts Theatre Company and staged at The Old Fitz Theatre
Shortlist: Drama
A revered filmmaker is doing the festival circuit for her latest cinematic adaptation of a literary classic, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. But a young critic accuses her of the inspiration landing too close to home. There must be a traumatic backstory to explain why she would want to tell such dark stories. Meanwhile, rumours about the treatment of the actors on set reveals tension between the film’s two leading ladies: a faded 90s horror scream queen and the Gen-Z it girl of psychological thrillers. Tracing the evolution of Gothic horror from 19th century literature to trashy 90s horror, Frame Narrative asks whether you can ever truly separate a work of fiction from its author.
Judges’ report
A meta-theatrical experiment in form which embraces artifice instead of rejecting it, Emily Sheehan’s Frame Narrative is a playful, intriguing work exploring the act of bringing something new into the world – be it art or human life – and the cost of this act, particularly through the lens of female experience and actualisation. There’s a clever irreverence to the writing – Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is quoted and then subsumed, genre shifts sharply between acts like a Matryoshka doll in reverse, and the ending rejects easy resolution. Sheehan’s script is ambitious in shape and scope, upending expectations commonly brought to feminist theatre and delivering a cool and often comic dissection of what limits and complicates the female gaze. Taut dialogue, sharp characters and a clear sense of the visual and metaphoric possibilities of theatre animate this script. The result is a fascinating play about power and consumption, art and socialised womanhood, and an unflinching sense of the extractive relationships that undo our lives.
About the Author
Emily Sheehan
VPLA book photography by Sarah Walker
The 2025 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards are proudly supported by the Victorian Government through the Community Support Fund and Creative Victoria.