I was scrolling through the YouTube app on my TV when I came across something I wasn’t expecting at all: a full length stage adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the Creature. And there next to him as Victor Frankenstein was the other Sherlock-Holmes-in-the-modern-world Jonny Lee Miller. Granted, a little investigation told me that both men actually alternated roles, with Cumberbatch playing the Creature some nights and Miller on the other.
Now, YouTube also had the Miller-as-Creature version, but I only found that after finishing the Cumberbatch version and really didn’t see the need to watch the play again. At least, not just yet. I still have a few days if I change my mind.
The play opens with a well-lit cocoon slowly bursting open and a nearly naked Benedict Cumberbatch flopping out. Devoid of much of his hair and covered in slime and odd scars, he spends the first few minutes on stage flopping around, trying to gain his feet and making a series of rather incoherent noises, clad only in a loincloth. His creator shows up for a minute before taking off, and from there, the Creature, never named, has to educate himself on everything from standing and walking to not taking a beating from ordinary people who take an instinctive dislike to the fellow as soon as they lay eyes on him. He eventually finds his way to a blind man’s house, and since the blind man is something of an educator, he teaches his new nameless friend about philosophy and love before the blind man’s son and daughter-in-law show up and drive the Creature off again.
That’s much of what makes up the first half or so of the play. This is, at least at first, the Creature’s story and not his creator’s. The Creature, never quite capable of understanding the world around him, just knows people hate him on sight and keep trying to murder him. He’s not the innocent of the old 30s horror movies, but when this Creature does commit an act of evil, it seems more out of misplaced frustration than malice.
But this Creature does more or less follow the plot of the original novel, and that means death for some of Victor’s closest loved one, most notably Victor’s fiancee Elizabeth (Naomie Harris), the only person in the play who can see the Creature and shows him compassion and pity. The effect of that scene, of course, makes the Creature’s actions towards Elizabeth perhaps even more awful.
That said, there is a point when the play suddenly becomes Victor’s story, and even if we want to partially excuse the Creature for having a limited understanding of the world, then Victor’s cold scientific approach to life is far worse. Why did Victor do what he did? Because he could, and for the life of him, Victor cannot conceive of the Creature being anything more than a reanimated corpse (yes, the reanimated corpse idea didn’t come from Shelley, but that doesn’t mean director Danny Boyle and writer Nick Dear didn’t use it anyway). The two are clearly locked in some kind of inescapable mutual orbit, where all the Creature wants is his creator’s love and some companionship while all Victor wants is for the Creature to die, and neither of them seem capable of getting what they want.
It’s not a bad adaptation, and kudos for the Royal National Theater for making it available. It’s a fundraiser, but I know I can’t exactly skip across an ocean and back in time nine years to see the play. I won’t say it’s the most compelling version I’ve ever seen, but it is a play being filmed, so that is to be expected.
Check it out while you can if this sounds at all interesting to you. I’m assuming the one with Miller as the Creature and Cumberbatch as Victor is about equal in terms of quality.
Grade: B+
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