A tale of two Frankensteins

Having got our ‘hot tickets’ for the National Theatre Frankenstein, we settle into our seats on the back row of the Olivier Circle. Our cast was Jonny Lee Miller as the Creature, and Benedict Cumberbatch as Victor.

The staging impresses from the outset. A bank of light bulbs hangs over the auditorium, angled down towards the stage, and pulses of light shoot down, bringing the creature to life. A huge bell also hangs over the audience, to be tolled at the start of the play, and at later points in the action. Centre stage is a large disc, with a figure inside it, and it is from within this that the Creature is ‘born’.

For the first 15 or so minutes of the play, there is hardly any dialogue. The creature is born, and emerges flailing and crawling, uttering guttural sounds. It is a feat to make all this totally enthralling, and never comic. Miller’s naked form, twitching with aftershocks from the lightening bolts, is a remarkable figure. No sooner born, than rejected by his creator, he is thrown out onto a world which rejects him for his strangeness, his appearance and his inability to communicate. He has a childlike enjoyment of the flying birds, and the rain which falls on him. But his encounters with humans lead only to harsh words, and rejection. To beatings and fear.

Whilst I wondered at the reason for having a steam train* come onto the stage, it is an impressive visual effect, all flying sparks, and clanking noise. Only when the Creature meets the blind De Lacey does he meet someone who does not judge, but educates him, first to speak, then to read. Seasons pass, and he grows into someone who can quote Paradise Lost, and understand the tales of the Roman emperors. But his understanding is warped, and rejection leads to him taking a terrible revenge, before setting off to seek his creator, Victor Frankenstein.

The change of staging, to create Lake Geneva, with some dry ice, and a couple of walkways, is simple but impressive.

Having made a brief appearance at the start of the play, Victor always seems slightly in the shadow of his creation. Of the two castings, I much preferred JLM as the Creature, and BC as Victor. JLM’s creature had more heart, more humanity, whilst BC’s Victor had all the arrogance and hubris of scientist who could play God. Horrified by what he had created, yet unable to take responsibility for it, he is still unable to resist trying again, to create perfection, only to destroy it at the last moment when he begins to consider where it might lead.

The scenes between the two are gripping, and there is a real theatrical thrill in seeing two excellent actors working off each other, probably enhanced by the fact that each knows both parts so well.

The play focuses on the relationship between the two main protagonists, at the expense of most of the supporting characters, though Karl Johnson’s De Lacey impresses. It’s in the quieter scenes that the problems of the script emerge. Some of the dialogue between lesser characters is weak, and when Elizabeth, Victor’s fiancée, declares Switzerland ‘picturesque’, I can’t help but cringe.

Finally, Victor and his Creation are alone in the Arctic wastes (further excellent lighting to create the green glow of the ice and the Northern Lights). The Creature’s reason for continued existence has become Victor, and Victor’s reason is to see his creation destroyed. Their final exit, bound together in a journey to the death, is ultimately moving as on what it means to be human, to have human feelings and compassion.

Unusually, at the end of the play, it was difficult to find the words talk about many of the aspects. It was very ‘cinematic’ in that it used the whole expanse of the space, creating stunning visual images, but theatrical in using the technical capabilities of the Olivier to the fullest effect. It is a production that you couldn’t do anywhere else. But the images stuck in my head, whirling in my mind the next day. And I knew that I wanted to see both the alternate casting, and the NT Live showing to see how the cinematic feel was translated for a cinema audience. There was only one problem. All the tickets for City Screen were sold out.

So there began a quest to track down tickets. I got put on the waiting list, but a waiting list doesn’t guarantee anything. It was only on the day of the showing that I got a call around lunchtime to say that they had had a ticket returned. I snapped it up.

Sitting in my seat that evening, looking at the Olivier auditorium on screen was thrilling. It was fascinating to see the alternative casting, the differences, and the similarities, in the performances. But I definitely preferred the casting that we saw live – perhaps because it was the first viewing, definitely because it was in the theatre, but to me it seemed more moving.

What did surprise me about the cinema transmission was that many of the things which I’d thought would look amazing, such as the bolts of lightening, and the scene changes, simply didn’t**. And a lot of the camera angles were rather strange – some scenes were filmed from above, which just felt wrong, as that isn’t the view that you’d ever get as an audience member in the theatre. The clunky dialogue seemed even more so the second time around.

What impressed again were the scenes between the Creature and Victor, seen this time in close up. Cumberbatch’s Creature was more alien than JLM, even more of an outsider, whilst JLM seems more of a physical actor, perhaps one of the reasons I felt that casting worked best.

I am so glad that I had the chance to see it live, and so appreciative that I was able to get a ticket to make the comparison. It will stay in my memory for a long time.

*Not literally, it’s not the Railway Children, after all. Also, isn’t this setting just a bit too early?!
**I am skipping over here the whole Creature’s nappy/loin cloth for the cinema audience.