LONDON — The creature of “Frankenstein,” or “The Modern Prometheus,” as the author Mary Shelley subtitled her 1818 masterpiece, is perhaps literature’s most misunderstood and misrepresented character: more an infantile outcast longing for love than a vengeful monster chased by pitchfork-wielding mobs.

It is that misbegotten aspect that drew the choreographer Liam Scarlett to bring Shelley’s story to life in a full-length work for the Royal Ballet, running May 4-27.

While the thought of a dancing monster may strike some as funny — think Peter Boyle in a white-tie-and-tails routine with Gene Wilder in “Young Frankenstein” — for Mr. Scarlett it was a chance to reinterpret a story that has long enthralled, and often baffled, readers and audiences.