Frankenstien at the National Theatre
Adapted by Nick Dear, Directed by Danny Boyle, design by Mark Tildesley.
The production features Benedict Cumberbatch, and Jonny Lee Miller splitting the role of Creature and Frankenstien in rep.
When you see the production you will understand why they don’t play the role of the creature nightly the physical demands are huge.
The visuals of the production are as always from the National Theatre impeccable with a canopy of bulbs and lamps that reaches out into the audience as well as the warm glow of the cottage of De Lancy the blind scholar . The idea of light and transparency is used throughout the work very well as a theme that builds the world the characters inhabit.
When adapting a work of literature to the stage certain allowances are made, how a length of time is represented, which subplots to keep, which to let go of and so forth. Nick Dear has given us a superficial swipe at a very rich novel. The play itself stands as engaging and entertaining but not compelling.It is a wild ride that misses the mark of the text. The rape of Elizabeth is no where in the book and has no place in the play. The question of who is the real monster, humanity, and longing are touched on but not flushed out.
The play tells the story through the creature’s experience,we do not get the growth of his intellect and the deeper longing within him. We see Frankestien for a nano second in the beginning and then not till much later. I understand that this is from the creature’s perspective but the first encounter with his maker could have and should have been flushed out a little.
The physicality of the work, Cumbebatch as the creature gives us an amazing athletic performance, consistent but lacking any moment of real stillness to allow us into the character to empathise it’s all on one level, here I think Boyle should have stepped in. The opening sequences of the creature experiencing the world verges very closely on self indulgence, and the random dream sequence took us nowhere.
Frankestien was missing some larger passions that encompass his loss, the death of his little brother devastates him in the book, and he is passionately in love with Elizabeth. Neither read in this interpretation.
The play is a masterful physical experience, and a good first attempt at mining what is a brilliant work of literature. A work that is nuanced and full of passion and longing. The play is a step closer to telling us this story that has been widely and weirdly misrepresented in film.
This was my second viewing of the work and I was less seduced by it than the first encounter. I think it is a smooth production, well crafted and acted, certainly worth watching, but lacks an emotional arc that would have drawn me in and connected me to the story.