Nick Dear's Frankenstein - A Review

London’s National Theatre is streaming a 2011 production of Nick Dear’s Frankenstein for free till May 7th. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Frankenstein’s creation, and Jonny Lee Miller plays Frankenstein himself, some of the time, the two actors alternate between parts for the run of the show. Both versions are available to watch on the London’s National Theatre YouTube channel. The show is directed by Danny Boyle of Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire, fame. The version I watched featured Cumberbatch as the creature.

The play is from the creatures point of view beginning with its birth. And what a birth it is. Spasming and twisted, Cumberbatch’s athletic and agonizing portrayal of the creature’s creation sets the tone for his physical commitment to the roll. Clocking in at over two hours the play ignores several characters and scenes from the book but this does not effect the smoothness of the narrative. Under a sky made of hundreds of bare bulbs the sets are sparse, apart from the house of Frankenstein which emerges rotating sideways from the floor to great effect. The rest of the scenes are in the hands of the two main actors to bring forth. Cumberbatch’s creature is a thing of nature, first living off the fields and woodlands, drinking rain as it falls. Then the cruel frozen wastes of the arctic that so reflect the empty harsh nature of the play’s main characters.

Jonny Lee Miller portrays Victor Frankenstein as a man of hubris, arrogance and, when it comes to women, naïveté. His indifference to the suffering of Cumberbatch’s creature make him, for a time, the villain of the piece. He is convinced more by ego then the monsters threats to create a female companion for the creature. Seeking perfection and improvement over his original achievement the creatures agonizing loneliness never factors into Frankenstein’s calculations.

The creature is at first an innocent and victim. But as he learns more from the humans whose company he craves the creature learns to embrace vengeance, deceit and murder until he and Frankenstein have nothing left but each other and the desire for revenge. In the end, they need each other as an excuse to exist. The creature finally has the full attention of his creator even as the latter purses him to the ends of the Earth for revenge.