Chase Brantley – “The Invisible Force”

Fumbling through the Public Domain during quarantine, I found an intriguing short story: “The Invisible Force” (1920) by Fred Merrick White. To my surprise, it was an apocalyptic disaster set in Victorian Era London. White’s story, while pretty terrible, was the incredible combination of “Downton Abbey” and all the cheesy disaster films I loved as a teenager (Day After Tomorrow, Dante’s Peak, etc). Right away I thought, “this would make one hell of a comedy.”

Before COVID, I ran Moonlight Theater, a comedy theater in Athens. I wrote shows there that were playful, absurd, and full of humanity. In this vein, my Shelter Project is a comical adaptation of White’s story for the theater. The show is slap-stick, absurd, and surprisingly beautiful. So go grab your biscuits, put on the kettle, and journey 117 years back to London on the eve of the world’s worst natural gas disaster!

Listen to a reading of The Invisible Force

Read The Invisible Force