Ramblings On...National Theatre Live's Frankenstein (original cast) encore

When I found out that NT’s Frankenstein was coming to American theaters for a limited run I was ecstatic.  As a new interpretation of Mary Shelley’s amazing book done back in 2011 at National Theatre starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, my American self had no idea what to expect.  Since I have of late been attempting to watch as many things that Benedict Cumberbatch has been in as possible, I was overjoyed at the opportunity to see him on stage.  I had figured I probably would not have the opportunity to see him in a stage performance before next year’s Hamlet, but this taped “encore” performance of the 2011 production provided an earlier opportunity, along with a great chance to see some British theater…or would that be theatre?  Anyway, I have always had what could maybe be considered a snobbish proclivity toward theater over television or film when it comes to meaningful art.  The true test of an actor’s abilities…

Anyway, I wasn’t sure which night would be which as I knew that BC and JLM switched off regarding who played the creature and who played Victor Frankenstein.  I bought one ticket for Monday night, then found out it was the “original” casting of BC as the creature.  This prompted me to buy a ticket for Wednesday night, too, as I wanted to see BC play Victor.  This may show a couple things about me…maybe: 1.I wanted to go to see B.C. act; and 2. that I preferred  to see BC pretty.  

To defend myself a bit, I would say that I have known who JLM is for considerably longer than BC. He was in Hackers and Trainspotting after all…how can I not know who he is?  I have found Elementary so different a Holmes  from what I am used to that I haven’t been able to get into it yet. 

Ok, really, who am I kidding?  I never even liked Holmes.  We had to read Doyle in school and I thought that Holmes was a morphine and coke-head with questionable motives.  RDJ and BC’s interpretations have made me care about the sociopath sleuth where I generally didn’t care about him before.  There. I’ve admitted it. 

As far as the seeing BC pretty thing, I guess I would say that it had more to do with the fact that Victor is the main character of the book, not the creature.  I figured that the actor playing Victor would be the actual main character.  This is not the case in the play.  We are brought more into the perspective of the creature. Sure there are a couple scenes that are more Victor, but really the creature is the main character. I was oblivious to this when I went to see the original casting on Monday night.  Even though I bought tickets to both showings, I am highly doubtful I will make even half of the Wednesday night show of I get there at all.  This is due to a dinner I am going to for my mother who is being honored for years of town service, so YAY MOM!  

Let me just say that if I wind up only having made one performance, I am very glad it was the performance I went to.  The show was so amazing that I couldn’t stop thinking about it last night, and haven’t been able to stop thinking about it today.  Shelley’s book can be viewed with attention to so many things—science as God, could v. should, nature v. nurture, taking responsibility for one’s actions and the list goes on.  This book, although written in the 1800s speaks volumes regarding humanity and human society even today.  She was at the forefront of the modern age and although the issues could be spotted back then, we often don’t seem to have done enough damage control since making the same mistakes time after time.  I’ve always been an advocate of genre media.  Often I feel that we continue to make these mistakes because we treat our very existence much as we treat our genre media—as some sensationalistic piece out of touch with reality when in its overreaching, it explains the most basic of concerns.

As Frankenstein was from the creature’s point of view, the beginning of the show is the beginning of the creature’s consciousness.  Coming through what has the look of a cocoon of sorts (or, ok, a wall placenta), the creature is birthed and attempts to understand his physical self.  My brother’s son Zachary was born back in May, and I was reminded of Zach trying to move.  Over the months, I have seen him become more familiar with himself, with what his legs do, what his arms do.  Everything is new.  Nothing is known or understood Nothing is taken for granted.  

In Shelley’s book we get an accounting from the creature about how he left the lab after having been left behind by his creator with no comfort and no guidance.  Here, we witness it.  A baby has months with mom and dad learning about their limbs.  They don’t even learn to crawl for months.  Imagine being born with an adult brain, adult limbs and adult expectations for those limbs but the memories of that infant.  What would that look like?

All of this initial self discovery was done buy himself—without parent or teaching of any kind.  As in the book, the creature’s first teachings are from the DeLacy family.  The difference in this is that that father was more hands on than in the book.  In the book the creature learns by observation.  Here, the blind father takes on teaching the creature about the world and literature. The additional storyline involving the Arabian is gone; Felix and Agatha are married instead of brother and sister.  Through learning from the father and observing the love between Felix and Agatha, the creature learns how truly alone in the world he is and longs for a companion.  In a sense, the fact that he has a personal relationship with DeLacy makes Felix and Agatha’s reaction to learning about him that much worse.  The creature learned to trust DeLacy and was disappointed again when Felix and Agatha didn’t give him the chance that DeLacy thought they would.

One of the things that makes it hard for me to sympathize with people who do bad after having a miserable childhood is a sentiment one may remember from the Supernatural episode “Jus In Bello” when Agent Hendrickson says “Everybody’s got a sob story but not everybody becomes a killer.”  I feel it is too easy to allow yourself to be the victim—to say that things are beyond your control because your life has been hard.  What makes someone a hero of the story over being the villain often boils down to their ability to leave his/her past behind and become the better person for the pain.  Here, the creature has definitely embraced his victim qualities.  We are reminded that he has only existed about three years, however.  He is acting in irrational ways, lashing out as a child does.  When children are usually at this stage, they do not have the ability to make much damage, and haven’t the development to fully understand how they have been wronged.  In that way, the creature becomes, with his ability to soak in knowledge at immense speeds, a being with the education and physical body of an learned adult with the emotional maturity of an infant.  This is definitely a recipe for disaster. 

Meanwhile, not being as heavily into Victor’s mind, we see the wrongs Victor has committed.  We also whether he has in fact learned from his mistakes. It seems closer to the truth to say that Victor knows the creature is too dangerous to be allowed to survive.  He is still very much impressed with his ability to create life where there was none.  He creates the bride only to destroy her to make the creature hurt—but before doing that he is genuinely impressed with his ability to improve upon his first attempt—to make a more beautiful creature. In the end Victor is a broken man, unable to see past the horrors. The creature looks to him for strength to persevere, showing a lack of growth as well—unwilling to accept his own accomplishments and continuing to seek parental validation and approval.

I recognized a couple of other actors in this production—Karl Johnson, who I remembered from The Illusionist, plays DeLacy. I remembered Naomie Harris from Small Island and Skyfall.  I was immensely impressed and stunned by the way Nick Dear was able to write a story that captured Shelley’s book so beautifully while giving it a fresher voice that expounded on the original ideas.  Of course I have to mention the direction of Danny Boyle, in bringing such life and vivacity into every scene.

When dealing with movies and television, I generally don’t notice lighting—except in extreme cases like a Baz Luhrman film.  Dealing with theater is a different story, however.  Maybe my fascination with lighting and the set itself it is partly due to my recent role as an Assistant Director with one of the local play groups.  I definitely noticed it here.  I loved the simplistic nature of the set that was able to morph into other amazing scenes showing time and distance.  The minimalistic nature brought our focus to the actors, who were all superb.  The lighting (lighting designer Bruno Poet)—used light bulbs in an almost anachronistic manner (once we see they are actual bulbs) which seems to create a bridge between the past and the future—a continuing theme of the production. 

All in all I loved the production and hope that we may actually be able to purchase the DVD of the production at some point in the future.  I highly recommend going out and trying to catch the last encore tomorrow night if at all possible.  It will be different in that JLM and BC will reverse their roles, the I’m sure the experience will also be amazing.