A play by Nick Dear, directed by Danny Boyle,
starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee
Miller
Life, although it may
only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Heartbeat… gradually gaining in strength.
Something in the parchment-like cocoon, a grotesque womb, is moving, there are
slender fingers tentatively stretching the pale membrane… again… again… the
skin is ripped… and a child is born…
…not quite, and yet this creature is exactly
that. Undoubtedly a grown man, yet utterly unaware of his own existence. With a
dirty loincloth as his only clothing he lies on the cold laboratory floor,
hands shaking, legs moving unconsciously, breathing – at first – with
difficulty, very much like a beached fish, helplessly trashing about with its
fins. Initial uncoordinated movement. He gasps for breath, insecure, as if not
used to breathing at all… and the umbilical cord hanging from the rupture
suggests that this man has not drawn breath in a while. His limbs move, almost
on their own accord, testing their functions on an intuitive level, accompanied
by the man’s strangled groans.
Being born is arduous, in particular when you
are a conglomerate of various parts of dead bodies. His body is covered with
scars, signs of how roughly he has been stitched together. The emphasis was on
functionality, not beauty.
Frankenstein’s creation, his Creature, moves
awkwardly, slowly gaining more control, resembling a foal getting up after
birth, unbalanced first, then steadier on its legs, but still without absolute
control. He moves like a man subjected to ataxia at first, a straddle-legged
and insecure gait. But we will soon realize that there is nothing wrong with
those parts of his nervous system responsible for coordinating movement. His
brain and his intelligence are intact.
The Creature makes several steps, and we hear
him grunt in a tone one might interpret as triumph, then disappointment as he
stumbles and falls, only to get up again in another supreme effort. He is
already a survivor, a being striving for life, hungry, and cold, petrified. He
doesn’t know the hostile world he has been thrown into, but – on the
subconscious level belonging to all social beings – aches to be a part of it.
With a child’s curiosity and driven by basic needs, this man, the Creature,
begins his journey, and I can hardly wait to be taken along. I am in tears as
he tries his first steps and, gaining more agility, moves about the stage,
laughing, proud of his achievement, and yet so utterly vulnerable.
When Frankenstein,
the play by Nick Dear, based on the novel by Mary Shelley, opened at the
National Theatre last year, I had no chance to see it during its limited run
between February and May. As much as I tried to get away from work and jump
over to London, it was just not possible. But – I was given a marvellous
opportunity by the NT’s re-broadcast in cinemas, and I’m exceedingly grateful
to the participants for agreeing to this.
And here I am… sitting in a darkened cinema,
getting sucked into a play as if I was actually present at the time it took
place on the National’s stage. Being intimately familiar with theatre, on stage
and off, I feel able to imagine how it would have felt to be actually sitting
there, the smells of wood, sweat, make-up, the sounds of feet on the stage
floor, smoke and mirrors…ah, theatre! I will see it four times, on Sundays
reserved for this very special, entirely unique and entrancingly magnetic
theatrical adventure. As these first minutes go by, I already know that this is
time well invested.
I have loved Mary Shelley’s unique creation
myth for many years. I believe I first read it when I was about seventeen and
have re-read it several times since. It remains a fascinating story to me, and
I enjoy how differently I have experienced the novel – according to my own
status of education, life experience, opinions and injuries I sustained during
my still young(ish) life.
In the story, Mary Shelley refers to the result
of Frankenstein’s eccentric experiment as creature,
wretch, fiend, monster and even it. To me, I have to admit, kind reader,
the Creature has always been a man. I find it hard to not see a man here, a
human being, despite his grotesque origins.
It is true, we shall
be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more
attached to one another.
Mary Shelley,
Frankenstein
The play takes a different course than
Shelley’s novel – it focuses primarily on the Creature, and we, the audience,
experience most of the story from the Creature’s point of view. Captain
Walton’s letters to his sister are not there (which serve as a frame for
Shelley’s story of gothic science fiction), and we don’t hear many details of
Victor Frankenstein’s childhood or studies.
Walter Scheele, self-declared chronicler of
Castle Frankenstein and Romanian historian Radu Florescu speculate in their
books that Mary Shelley visited Castle Frankenstein (South of Darmstadt,
Germany) in 1814 during her journey along the Rhine where Johann Konrad Dippel,
a theologian, anatomist, doctor and alchemist, born in 1673 at the actual castle,
is supposed to have conducted various alchemic experiments involving human
remains. However, there is no historical proof to this allegation, yet the idea
alone seems fascinating to me, since an inscription on a monument in his honour
says about him: Dippel was a supreme
mind, unyielding, proud, aiming high… which sounds a tad like Victor
Frankenstein, wouldn’t you say? – In Scene 29 of the play Victor exclaims ‘My mind is superb! It’s superb!’
Victor, born into a wealthy Genevan family,
studies science in Ingolstadt (a German university founded in the 15th
century). As his mother dies of scarlet fever, shortly before he is to depart
for university, he becomes obsessed with chemistry and galvanism (the science
of stimulating muscles with electricity, an effect found by Italian physician
Luigi Galvani in the late 17-hundreds, basically the foundation of today’s
electrophysiology). Soon Victor ventures into God-territory by creating a man
intended to be beautiful to behold, alas, the creature is hideous to him, and
Victor flees, repelled by what he created.
This is one of the many disturbing scenes of
the play… Victor wearily enters his Ingolstadt laboratory and finds the
Creature outside the membrane-covered womb-construction, where he collapsed,
exhausted from his first steps as a living being.
Victor in all likelihood thinks that the
membrane by accident didn’t hold its contents. At his attempt to move the
Creature Victor realises in horror that the experiment lives. It can’t be. No.
It can’t be…
The genius is just as helpless here as his
creation is. This is a situation Victor in unprepared for and thereby overcome
with fear and disgust. These strong sensations take over and the scholar
abandons all scientific thought (or compassion for that matter) and flees after
covering the wretched thing with his cloak (unaware, though, that his journal
remains in its pocket which will ensure his doom).
In this scene we find a pleading Creature,
yearning for contact with another being, yet not fully grasping his own
intentions… As I watch this moment, I feel reminded of Nobel-honouree Konrad
Lorenz’ studies on filial imprinting. Lorenz demonstrated how geese, bred in an
incubator, would imprint on the first moving object they became aware of within
the first minutes of their lives. Pictures of Lorenz followed by young geese
that imprinted on him became quite famous at the time.
The Creature, very much like a gosling, tries
to follow his maker, in desperate need to connect with him. Only a few minutes
old, he already craves another’s reaction and recognition on a purely
instinctive level (since he has no inner psychological representation of his own
self or his father as of yet). Much
later, years really, he will return to the one person he somewhat imprinted on,
if you’ll allow me this comparison, kind reader, and seal their shared fate.
For now he is left behind in a cold room, frightened,
in a benighted state… and without identity. Much later the Creature will tell
De Lacey asking for his name that he never heard his name… for me one of the
saddest moments in the play.
He is cast out, nameless, thereby lacking a
first sense of identity. He later discovers that everything owns a name, be it
snow, fire or stone, but the Creature does not. He remains bereft of the sense
of belonging a name usually carries with it – it’s a ‘luxury’ he is not granted. A name connects us, on a number of
levels, to our identity – our nationality, our background, sometimes social
class (or parental expectations which indicates that the parent in this
scenario, Frankenstein, didn’t have any expectations for his Creature, and if
he did actually have any, they most likely didn’t coincide with this child’s
own wishes).
Since Victor doesn’t see anything else than an
experiment, an equation, a slave even, as he says later in the play, there is
no need for a name. ‘You have no rights,
you are a slave!’ (Scene 24). And there is another phenomenon connected to
the Creature’s no-name existence: often people make the mistake of calling the
Creature Frankenstein, inadvertently
robbing him of an existence of his own and practically uniting or identifying
him with his maker (which is not entirely inaccurate, since both belong to one
another, very much like two sides of the same coin). It’s a very popular
misunderstanding, and in all likelihood rooted in the fact that this man has no
name.
Furthermore, it shows the dehumanization of the
Creature, since the focus of countless films has mostly been on Victor and his
narcissistically desperate struggle to create life which has also furthered the
Creature ‘identity’ as a monster, not giving him any voice at all – whereas in
the book we meet a very astute being.
This play by Nick Dear and Danny Boyle superbly
twists the popular story, and we follow the events along with the Creature – we
are invited into his soul to witness the evolution of an innocent man who
learns – by painful experience – what makes a human being.
Scene 18
Creature: I have been reading Plutarch.
De Lacey: Ah, yes, the founders of ancient Rome – men
that showed that the world could be improved. (…)
De Lacey: We band together to help one another, and do
good.
Creature: But then you massacre each other.
Scene 29
Creature: I am good at the art of assimilation. I have
watched, and listened, and learnt. At first I knew nothing at all but I studied
the ways of men, and slowly I learnt: how to ruin, how to hate, how to debase,
how to humiliate. And at the feet of my master I learnt he highest of human
skills, the skill no other creature owns: I finally learnt how to lie.
A mirror is held up to us, isn’t it? It
reflects a barren place, the only place the Creature has found during his
struggles. It is in various ways an echo of our world. In our Western society many
live (or try to live) a life of self-focused and competitive entitlement but
even within our society – and all around the globe – many people are in a
constant fight for life. A happy few enjoy the privileges of financial,
material, emotional security, but a lot of people out there will never know
what security means.
The rejection the Creature faces in his early
days will shape his nature and leave him in a state of uncertainty and
instability. His encounters with a prostitute and a couple of beggars are
rather unpleasant. He is beaten up, told to ‘Piss
off! Bugger off!’, hungry and very much afraid.
I am infinitely moved by the Creature’s
attempts to understand the world he has been thrown into. As he discovers the
heat of fire and its effects on food and pot, the chilling quality of night
rain and the strange taste of grass…, as he ecstatically shrieks at the morning
birds and bathes in the warm rays of the rising sun…, I am guided through a
variety of emotions: anger at the prejudice he meets, joy at his touchingly
childlike curiosity – and fear for
him and of him.
This is a person of raw emotions, unfiltered by
social rules or education, and even though he finds a friend in an old blind
man in the woods, De Lacey, who offers him friendship and parental guidance,
the time they spend together is too short to actually train his empathy.
Despite the care he is shown by De Lacey, the Creature has experienced too much
disappointment, contempt and fear, on a number of traumatic levels. The moral
compass provided by the elder is not stable enough, not fed by adequate
experience.
Nothing is either good
or bad, but thinking makes it so.
Shakespeare, Hamlet
His idea of how the world is run stems from
books De Lacey introduces him to, the ideals of the ancient world,
characterized by reason and logic, true, but also by revenge – as he finds with
Plutarch, contemporary of Nero, and John Milton’s Paradise Lost.
I am immensely moved by the Creature’s
progress, amazed by his curiosity and ability to imitate. It’s a grown man’s
brain, and though emotionally in an unrefined and innocent state, his intellect
grasps everything quickly. All those synapses, dead for who-knows-how-long,
produce new connections in his process of learning. He slowly dares to trust De
Lacey more, allowing him to touch him, to ‘see’
him, and finds compassion and relationship in response.
De Lacey becomes the kind of father
Frankenstein refused to be. It is most unfortunate that Victor didn’t seize the
opportunity. De Lacey teaches the Creature literature, but also the sounds of
nature, the characteristics of the seasons (which gives us lovely scenes as the
Creature charmingly discovers snow). And the Creature, in return, takes care of
the obstacles in the field and occasionally provides the family with fresh hare
and birds. It’s evident, as I see it, that the Creature is at first a very
compassionate man, willing to learn and hope. He is still governed by fear,
though.
Scene 16
De Lacey: I have taught you how to speak! How to read.
There is hope. Who knows what you may accomplish?
Creature: (shakes
his head) Hate me.
De Lacey: Who does?
Creature: Men. Women. Childs. Dogs.
De Lacey: No, they don’t.
Creature: Throw stones. Beat me. Everywhere!
Everywhere!
During his studies with De Lacey, the Creature
surely curiously ventures out into the world and meets hatred. ‘Everywhere!’ Life seems to bear hard on
him, as he asks De Lacey during one of their walks in the woods ‘How long are we meant to be alive for?’ Of course, this might just be an innocent
question or one spurred by the scientific manner of thinking De Lacey
introduced him to, but to my ears these words also imply a touch of immense
sadness. He is solitary. And sad.
Like the moon, as he describes to De Lacey:
Scene 18
De Lacey: Why is it (the moon) sad?
Creature: Because it is solitary.
De Lacey: Why are you sad?
Creature: Because with all that I read, all that I
learn, I discover how much I do not know. Ideas batter me like hailstones.
Questions but no answers. Who am I? Where am I from? Do I have a family?
De Lacey: You have us. My son will not turn you away.
I promise you. Come along and say hello to him.
Creature: No!
There is no reason for him to believe that De
Lacey’s son and beautiful daughter-in-law might treat him any differently, and
the Creature hesitates for a long time before agreeing to meet De Lacey’s
suggestion. When he finally does, in the most courtly and civil fashion, the
reaction he gets is exactly what he feared all along – it’s the kind of
reaction the Creature has gotten used to by now: rejection in the most
malicious manner.
Watching this scene my stomach protests, I feel
literally sick. I know that people can behave thus. I know there is no end to
man’s cruelty. I know how fear – however unfounded – can drive man to
unspeakable deeds, but still I find it difficult to accept. To call a man a beast, a monster, based solely on the way he looks?! How many men have come
back from wars disfigured and monstrous in their looks, but still men? Traumatized and injured beyond
their physical wounds. Have you ever seen, kind reader, the kind of wounds
shrapnel or grenades produce? Disastrous injuries. Ugly, yes, horrific to
behold, but would you turn these men away because of their disfigurement? Would
you drive them out with whips?
I want to scream at Felix and Agatha – hold
your horses for a moment, really look
at the Creature, listen to him, and then understand that this is a sentient,
gifted being, capable of common sense and compassion. I am aware that these two
are not highly educated (a pity, really, with a father like De Lacey) and
therefore subscribe to fear and superstition.
There is only one voice telling the Creature
that he is an astute man (De Lacey’s), but others repeatedly tell him to ‘Piss
off’, tell him how ghastly he is, so he can’t really not believe them, can he?
De Lacey is the exception that proves the rule, and how sad that is.
And now, shaped by infinite disappointment,
sorrow, loneliness and anger the Creature changes gear. There is only one way –
so he hopes – to not experience rejection anymore: living with a companion of
his own kind. And there is only one man capable of providing a female – Victor
Frankenstein. So, naturally, the Creature travels to Geneva.
Before him he carries
noise, and behind him he leaves tears:
Death, that dark
spirit, in ‘s nervy arm doth lie.
Shakespeare,
Coriolanus
As the Creature disrupts the happy scene of
Switzerland, we witness a master of manipulation. I wouldn’t be surprised if we
were to find out that among the books provided by De Lacey were Machiavelli’s Discorsi and Il Principe in which the Creature would have learned that a prince
should be virtuous but also willing to abandon those virtues should the necessity
arise. In order to secure Frankenstein’s attention, he murders Victor’s brother
William – it’s the kind of message nobody could ignore and Victor understands
instantly.
It’s another heart-breaking collection of
scenes. The Creature approaching the initially curious William, the family
discovering the boy’s body and Victor’s shock as he realizes that his past has
caught up with him… As a member of the audience I feel what will happen… there
is no hope… the story will spiral into a crescendo of pain and loss. I’m deeply
fascinated by what’s happening on stage and feel the urge to scream and weep. And,
yet, my sympathies are divided now, too. I’d like to slap you and praise you,
Danny Boyle, for doing this to me… to have a complex emotional reaction like
this is what I yearn for when I watch a play... Theatre can’t get any better
than this…
My heart goes out to Victor and Elizabeth, as
much as it feels with the Creature. Is it possible that these people have so
much in common? I sense the most profound loneliness there. The loneliness of
the socially awkward and unappreciated genius, the solitude of the devoted, yet
somewhat estranged, bride and the isolation of a Creature not belonging to
anyone or any place. At its core, as I experience this play, Frankenstein is an insightful essay on
loneliness and the unparalleled amount of vulnerability that belongs to it.
With this scene, the atmosphere becomes dense
with imminent disaster.
Victor, substantially vulnerable with his
narcissism, follows the Creature’s call and climbs Mont Blanc. Some of the
major characteristics of narcissism are – when you look beyond the arrogance,
grandiosity, and hypersensitivity to criticism you find on the surface –
deep-rooted insecurity and fragile self-esteem which needs to be protected at
all costs. Victor’s insecurities show in small gestures and in his longing for
greatness – he knows that he is a man of exceptional talent, and yet it has not
been enough to compensate the loss of his mother, as this later scene shows:
Scene 25
Monsieur Frankenstein: Victor, why are you so sad? When your mother
was dying –
Viktor: Don’t bring her into it –
M. Frankenstein: When your mother was dying, I gave a promise
that I would see you wed your cousin Elizabeth. That was my wife’s last wish –
that you might be happily married. You were such a sunny child, a carefree
child, alert and inquisitive, the joy of our days! I came to believe you would
do great things, and I would be proud of you! Instead we have this sullenness,
this melancholy, this low fog of doom. You flout my authority; you do not
respect the codes by which we live. In short you disappoint me.
Monsieur Frankenstein is quite blunt in his
accusations, and he hits the spot that hurts most – the death of Victor’s
mother. The loss of her was the beginning of Victor’s obsession to find ways to
stop people from dying, to reverse the process of dying, to create new life
from death. With the way Victor’s mind works, I wouldn’t be surprised if Victor
had felt deeply (however irrationally) responsible for his mother’s death. Had
he started earlier with his studies, perhaps he would have been able to keep
her alive? Beneath his struggles to be a genius of superb mind we find his
desperate need for compensating this loss which sets Victor on a road to
loneliness and isolation.
So, driven by curiosity and despair (and, I
believe, a subconscious wish to soothe the genius’ solitude), Victor finds his
creation. He brings a scalpel, too. This experiment ‘must be curtailed!’
And what a moving, agonizing, complex scene we
are given here. There are so many nuances played out. Of course, at first the
instincts of the scientist take over – as Victor realizes how perfect his work
is.
Scene 24:
Victor: Muscular coordination – hand and eye –
excellent tissue – perfect balance! And the sutures have held! I failed to make
it handsome, but I gave it strength and grace! What an achievement! Unsurpassed
in scientific endeavour! God, the madness of that night – the heat, the sweat,
the infusions, the moment when I saw it crawl towards me, and I – and I –
Creature: You ran away.
Victor: What?
Creature: You abandoned me.
Victor: (stunned)
It speaks.
Creature: Yes, Frankenstein, it speaks.
Victor: You know my name?
The Creature hands
Victor the tattered journal.
My journal!
Creature: Why did you abandon me?
Victor: I was terrified – what had I done?
Creature: Built a man, and given him life –
Victor: Well, now I have come to take it away –
Creature: (laughs)
Oh, have you?
Victor: I have come to kill you!
Creature: To kill me? Why then did you create me?
Victor: To prove that I could!
Creature: So you make sport with my life?
Victor: In the cause of science! You were my
greatest experiment – but an experiment that has gone wrong.
What hubris, oh God. Watching this scene I feel
reminded of a line Jeff Goldblum’s character speaks in Jurassic Park: ‘Life will not
be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes
through barriers.’ Victor believed to be able to contain his experiment,
and yet it was his scientific genius that allowed his creation to become a
man. This scene illustrates wonderfully
Victor’s non-ethical approach to science as a means to an end. And I, again, am
going through a plethora of emotions. 
Being a psychologist and therapist, I am
well-acquainted with the lure and fascination of a scientific approach to a
situation, a person or a deed. I understand Victor’s initial joy as he finds
his experiment to be surpassing all expectations. He hasn’t applied any ethical
standards. He meant to prove that he was capable of creating a man and reverse
death, driven by a sense of grandiosity and paying no attention to potential
disadvantages or collateral damage.
Scientists have conducted controversial
experiments in the past. Today – I sincerely hope – moral and ethical rules are
obeyed, but I imagine that there are many Frankensteins out there… trying to go
just another step further. They are to be found in all fields of science, I
believe, which is an eerie thought. Ambition, as wonderfully shown here, will
allow some scientists to abandon accepted rules – to prove that they can… which
makes Frankenstein a most
contemporary play.
He seems to feel his
own worth, and the greatness of his fall.
Mary Shelley,
Frankenstein
Victor: Do you feel no remorse?
Creature: Remorse? When I walk through a village, the
children throw stones. When I beg for food, they loose their dogs. What is the
function of remorse?
Victor: I’m sorry, I –
Creature: Sorry? You’re sorry? You caused this! This
is your universe! Frankenstein. Here is my request. I wish to be part of
society. But no human being will associate with me. But one of my own kind –
one just as deformed and horrible – she would understand – she would –
Again, the issue of loneliness comes up. The
Creature’s demand is quite understandable and yet contradictory. With the same
breath he accuses Victor of making sport with his life the Creature asks him to
do it again. To make sport with another’s life this time, in order to be given
a companion. How easily the Creature subscribes
to double standards – it’s absorbing and appalling.
Victor challenges the Creature’s wishes and
accuses him of being unreliable, but on other grounds, and I can’t help but
wonder – has the thought I just illustrated not occurred to Victor at all?
Victor: You say you’ll go abroad and disappear, yet
you also say you yearn to be accepted by society. But won’t you grow tired of
exile? Won’t you return, and try once more to live among people? (…) But now,
when you run wild, there will be two of you, and double the destruction. Why
should I facilitate this?
Creature: Because I am lonely! Every creature has a
mate! Every bird in the sky! Even you are to be married. Why am I denied the
comforts you allow yourself? A moment ago you were amazed at my intellect, but
now you harden your heart. Please, do not be inconsistent, I find it
infuriating. All I ask is the possibility of love.
Of course. That’s the bottom line of social,
sentient beings. The need to belong to someone. This urge has spurred the Creature’s
actions from the beginning. He had hoped to find it with other people,
particularly with De Lacey and his family, but to no avail.
Though Victor is moved by the Creature’s
loneliness, it is the scientific challenge that wins him over. To create a
female – ah, the possibilities! The prospect of the Creature leaving the
country for ever drives Victor to make haste – postpone the wedding and accept
to disappoint his father and his fiancée. In many ways Victor seeks solace in science –
as science is accountable, logical, while emotion is not. Socially awkward, he
doesn’t know how to handle Elizabeth’s wishes, yet alone how to talk to her,
hereby displaying a problem many highly gifted people face. With an academic
fire burning like a candle at both ends, misery can’t be far.
Elizabeth: Then go, and do your work, and be brilliant.
And after that come home to me, and be my husband.
And that is exactly what Victor is going to be:
brilliant. We, the audience, are given a few moments of comic relief as we
watch Victor getting to the Orkneys where he employs two crofters, Rab and Ewan,
to provide him with fresh human remains.
It seems Victor works day and night, rarely
allowing himself any rest. He looks positively shot to pieces. As good as
finished with his task, he falls asleep at the table – probably with the help
of some liquor. To my eyes it seemed to be of the same colour as laudanum, but
I could be mistaken. We witness a dream. Victor is confronted by William who
asks all kinds of inconvenient questions…
William: Will they reproduce? Will they have wombs,
the females? Will they breed? How
quickly will they breed? How fast is the
cycle? How many in a litter? Fifty? A hundred? A thousand?
The boy reflects Victor’s apprehension – what
if they actually do reproduce? Will there be hundreds of them roaming the
earth? Will they eventually kill all ‘normal’ humans? What is he about to do?
As he wakes from his troubled dream at the Creature’s
call, Victor seems less determined, but not less proud of his accomplishment.
He shows off his female creation, and the Creature is enthralled. Naturally,
she is very beautiful. And while the Creature admires the female – but is not
allowed to touch, yet – Victor torments him, caressing and kissing the female
creature… a scene of inconceivable cruelty. There is no subtlety here.
Victor: She might reject you. She might abhor the
sight of you. She might take one look at you and run – she might say she wants
to live with a man, not a monster. (…) Look at her cheeks, her lips, her
breasts. Who would not desire those breasts? What if she leaves you? What if
she finds someone else? How will you feel if you’re deserted by one of your own
species, the only one of your own species, the only one you can take to your
bed – how will you react?
Creature: I will run mad if she leaves me!
Victor: It’s a risk, then, isn’t it?
Creature: No, because I will give her such adoration,
such devotion she will never want to leave!
Oh, my dear… if you smother her with adulation,
she will most likely run away. The Creature has no history of love or being
loved, and he professes his desire will all his heart. For him, this is love.
And he explains it in the most moving, beautiful fashion:
Victor: How does it feel, to be in love?
Creature: It feels like all the life is bubbling up in
me and spilling from my mouth, it feels like my lungs are on fire and my heart
is like a hammer, it feels like I can do anything in the world! Anything in the
world!
Victor: Is that how it feels?
Victor doesn’t know this kind of love. Well,
not for another person. For his work, perhaps. Alas, a creature composed of
dead body parts appears to be more capable of love than the brilliant prodigy
Victor Frankenstein. As Victor deceives the Creature (callously making him
choose the finest dress for his bride) he is about to bring on his own ruin.
But not his alone. Victor’s destruction of the female creature will ensure
sorrow for his family and the cruellest death for Elizabeth, as well.
For now, Victor is rescued by his father who
has come for him, but he knows that the Creature will not rest – and neither
will Victor. We are not told how much time passes between the events in
Scotland and the wedding in Geneva, but we may safely presume that Victor has
not found any peace. There is no bliss for him on his wedding day, only
tension. He has no eye for his beautiful bride who waits for him to join her in
their bedroom.
My nearest and dearest
enemy.
Shakespeare, Henry IV
When Victor appears at long last, he is not
there to make love to her. He feels
that the Creature is near – the sure instinct of a man driven by conscience and
terror. It is most ill-fated that Victor has not earlier taken the time to share
his dreadful secret. When he finally does, Elizabeth finds it hard to believe
and she assumes her husband might be delusional. He had a nervous collapse in Scotland, after all.
But there is something about Victor’s desperate
need to explain, his broken down hauteur, that she can’t but trust his words
and, moreover, offer forgiveness, strength, tenderness and understanding. And,
finally, Victor admits I do love you,
Elizabeth.
What a wonderful woman. She oozes integrity and
love, and though I know what will happen – I find myself praying silently,
hoping there might be redemption for Victor and that both might find happiness.
Now I am delusional, kind reader.
The instant after Victor runs out to hunt the
enemy down Elizabeth is at the mercy of the Creature. I almost scream as he
springs from inside the bed – what a moment! I have not noticed that he was
hiding beneath the sheets.
It’s a rather long scene, too long… and
intensely disturbing. Even more so, as it takes a sweet course at first with
Elizabeth overcoming her initial fear only to offer to be the Creature’s
friend. It dawns on her that Victor did not exaggerate. He did, indeed, build a man. Elizabeth listens with an
open heart, moved by the hideousness of the Creature and his timid attempts to
establish contact with her. She does not react to the Creature’s ironic remarks
(Give voice to the oppressed!),
because, I believe, she wishes to offer him only kindness and to be able to do
that she can’t expect anything else from him. It’s unspeakably tragic how wrong
she is.
Creature: Tonight I have met someone – perfect. Thank
you for trying to understand. But he broke his promise. So I break mine. I am
truly sorry, Elizabeth.
Though her survival instinct finally takes
over, she can’t flee. The Creature grabs her, drags her back to the bed and
rapes her. Oh, yes, he has, indeed, learned a lot about the cruelty of man. He
doesn’t merely kill her, no, he has to wound her in the worst way possible. His
revenge couldn’t be more complete.
Victor, again, is too late. He rushes in just
in time to witness this savagely shocking picture and to hear Elizabeth scream
his name in a manner that freezes my blood. Victor is equally frozen as he
falls to the floor, gun in hand, incapable of placing a shot. There is a moment
of unbearable silence and the sound of Elizabeth’s breaking neck still lingers…
I can hardly believe my eyes. My hands are
shaking, and tears streaming down my face.
As Victor’s scientist persona takes over – a
welcome defence mechanism that allows him to deal, somewhat, with this impossible
situation – I fear for a moment that we are about to witness a similar scene as
the one in Kenneth Branagh’s Frankenstein.
There, Victor revives his bride, only to lose her again in a dreadful way.
Here, though, Victor is prevented by his determined father who has long lost
hope as he feels to have lost his son.
He will lose him now. Victor can’t go back. He
must find the Creature, he only lives now for his destruction. They meet again
in the Arctic after a long pursuit across
the Black Sea, through Tartary and Russia. Victor has exhausted his means
and struggles, frostbitten, to keep up with the Creature who keeps taunting
him. Alas, there is hardly any strength left in his bones, and as Victor
collapses, the Creature’s mockery becomes frightened worry and he tenderly
cradles his maker like a child.
Creature: Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me alone. You
and I, we are one. While you live, I live. When you are gone, I must go too.
Master, what is death? What will it feel like? Can I die? (…) All I wanted was
your love. I would have loved you with all my heart. My poor creator.
(Victor suddenly revives) Master! You do
love me! You do!
Victor: I don’t know what love is.
These are father and son. A twisted and painful
relationship. Both emotionally chipped, and more similar than either believed
possible. Again the profound sense of loneliness which has drifted through the
whole play envelops both.
Victor: Every chance I had of love, I threw away.
Every shred of human warmth I cut to pieces. Hatred is what I understand.
Both men encountered chances of love, warmth,
proximity of another person, peace and were incapable of using them. The intense
sadness of this play holds me in its tight grip. And I need a moment to gather
my wits.
Nothing is forever in
the theatre. Whatever it is, it’s here, it flares up, burns hot and it’s gone.
Joseph L. Mankiewicz,
All About Eve
In the surge of applause I become aware – again
– what a magnificent, hot-burning piece of theatre I have just seen. I need a
while to crawl through the density of emotions I have witnessed and
experienced. The magic of theatre – words spoken by gifted actors transform the
stage and you enter a world which is simultaneously alien and familiar.
Though I am well acquainted with Mary Shelley’s
novel and many films dealing with this particular subject, nothing prepared me
for this unique production. Despite my previous knowledge of the material’s
innate tragedy, Danny Boyle’s version took me by surprise more than once, and I
have no words to thank this ingenious artist for his vision of alternating the
lead roles.
You rarely see the same role interpreted by
different actors and it’s a fabulous experience. I am always fascinated by the
nuances an actor brings to a part, what he uses to breathe life into words,
which movements he chooses, what he’s capable of doing with his voice. In
short, I appreciate good acting. I love to feel how an actor draws me into a
character’s story and holds me there firmly for two or three hours. For me,
it’s one of the greatest pleasures in life. There are others, of course, but
the theatre holds a very special place in my soul – and it always will.
The production team found two extraordinarily gifted
actors for this particular piece – Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch.
Their chemistry on stage is amazingly stimulating. And – tremendously important
for an actor – they actually listen to each other. It’s not merely the
reproduction of memorized lines on cue, you can see them react exactly to what
the other says in word or gesture, and I’m in theatre heaven when I notice that
kind of skill.
It’s close to impossible to compare the two
men. Both approach the characters, Victor Frankenstein and the Creature,
differently, and both deliver marvellous performances.
Mr Miller brings many infectiously cute
movements you find with babies (like putting his toe in his mouth) to his
interpretation of the Creature, but also unbearable menace – in the rape scene
he is violently distressing. He is full of contradictions – and thereby very
human – in this role which culminates in the final scene. A mocking, cruel
Creature, clearly feeling superior to Frankenstein… crumbles to a forlorn child
upon fearing that his maker had died and left him alone. It’s heart-breaking to
watch him desperately trying to revive Victor, and all his terrible deeds are
forgotten at this moment…
As Frankenstein, Mr Miller is cold and
calculating, obsessed with science, a man eventually trying to hang on to his
sanity. With his arrogance he seems to be the villain of the play who
eventually falls, devastated at the loss of his fiancée (charmingly portrayed
by Naomi Harris). Then, his complacency dissolves to sheer despair, and he
almost appears delusional as he exclaims ‘My mind is superb!’ It’s an utterly
beautiful – and disturbing – performance.
I have to admit, though, that Benedict
Cumberbatch stirred me more, as the Creature and as Viktor Frankenstein. His
stage presence alone fills the room before he even utters a word, and he moves
with the natural grace of a trained dancer or athlete. I wouldn’t be surprised,
though, to hear that he hurt himself while trying to get on his feet after
being born, as he appears to have delved into that scene with unparalleled
passion. With those first minutes his performance slips under my skin.
With many years of ballet in my background, I
tend to look at physical scenes like that with a dancer’s eye and I see the
training the scene requires, the determination and discipline to produce movements
as arduous as we see on stage, and I am in awe.
As the Creature he is pitiful and frightening in
his mercurial reactions. With De Lacey’s guidance (most beautifully acted by
the lovely Karl Johnson) he gains integrity which he allows to be manipulated
by his experiences. It can hardly be disputed that the Creature – from an
actor’s point of view – is Frankenstein’s
most challenging figure. It takes a lot of guts and skill and charisma to tread
the fine line of being unbelievably appealing and utterly appalling within the
same role. Mr Cumberbatch masters this task wonderfully, managing to never lose
the audience’s sympathies despite the atrocities the Creature commits.
As Frankenstein he is peculiarly endearing to
me. A man of fierce intellect, yet unable to establish any meaningful contact
with another human being. This man, this genius, yearns to go further, to best
death itself but is, in the end, tragically so, a man weakened physically and
spiritually, out of joint with his family and his fiancée. We find all of that
in Mr Cumberbatch’s performance, and so much more. He is particularly gripping
and unnerving when telling Elizabeth (prior to his departure for Scotland) that
she will make a beautiful wife (while examining her arm as if considering her
to be a specimen), then incredibly tender in his reaction to her generous
acceptance of his task.
In the hands of a lesser actor the character of
Frankenstein could have remained a one-dimensional figure. Mr Cumberbatch delivers
an elegant, multi-facetted, at times quietly revelatory, performance of a
tormented man. He is happiest carving up bodies, yet longing for a loving home
and incapable of achieving it. He is solitary. Like the moon.
It’s intriguing how gestures of the Creature
found their way into Mr Cumberbatch’s Frankenstein and vice versa (a phenomenon
I also observed with Mr Miller), which enhanced the idea of them being two
sides of one coin.
The talent of being able to make a person’s
inner life available to an audience is a gift you are either born with or not.
It’s not an achievement. It is grace. And then the actor’s training and work
begin. I must say that I love the quality of a well-trained actor’s voice, and
I admire what Mr Cumberbatch is able to convey with his voice alone. From the
infant-like babble and slurred attempts to form vowels to the verbal jousting
in the last third of the play, he is in control of his voice and his words, and
I am completely absorbed by this man’s unique ability.
I love performances that challenge an audience
– and Frankenstein does it in the
most impressive and mesmerizing manner. Furthermore, the performances here are
undoubtedly some of the boldest I’ve ever seen. There has been much ado about
the actors being naked on stage. Both actors portraying the Creature and Andreea
Padurariu, the female creature. In the version I have enjoyed at the cinema
they are not. My guess is that the production allowed the actors some clothing
to cover their intimate parts for the live broadcast. During a theatre performance
there is an inherent distance between actors on stage and the audience. Though
this distance can be quite short at the National, it’s still there. The moment
a camera captures the performance, this protective distance dissolves into
merciless close-ups and I’m glad the actors didn’t have to go there.
I am very grateful that I had the chance of
watching Frankenstein via NT live,
but I have to admit that I understand why there won’t be a dvd release of the
production. Theatre is a snap shot, really. It happens in the very moment on
stage. ‘It’s here, it flares up, burns
hot and it’s gone.’ Everything, lights, sound, make-up, etc. are designed
for the stage and the auditorium in the house. It can’t be transferred to a TV
screen, as that would require a different approach to the medium.
Frankenstein belongs in a theatre. There it is a
most glorious event, a raging tumult of emotion, utterly captivating. A
fabulous composition of acting talent, haunting music, excellent visual
effects, convincing staging, outstanding timing and superb choreography. I have
rarely experienced a play so visceral, displaying a variety of human conditions
without dwelling on a particular one, and asking philosophical questions – is
it a metaphor for the contest between science and religion, embodied by one
man’s pursuit to wield the power of God? A thesis on the nature of good and
evil – and prejudice? A study on parental obligation? An allegory for the
arrogance of unethical science? A mirror of Mary Shelley’s personal life of
emotional turmoil? It is all that and everything else you might find there. There
is room for interpretation. This play owns all the qualities of a classic
theatre piece. Personally, I wouldn’t mind if it returned to the stage again.
Recommendations for
further reading:
Shelley, Mary: Frankenstein
Dear, Nick: Frankenstein.
Play based on the novel by Mary Shelley
Florescu, Radu: In Search of Frankenstein
Hay, Daisy: Young
Romantics – the Shelleys, Byron and Other Tangled Lives
Hoobler, Dorothy & Thomas: The Monsters. Mary Shelley and the Curse of
Frankenstein
Holmes, Richard: The Age of Wonder. How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty
and Terror of Science
Seymour, Miranda: Mary Shelley
Tomalin, Claire: The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft
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