Deja Vu

You’d think that seeing the same two-hour play twice in three days might get a little repetitive, but not when there are such drastic differences between the two performances.

Those of you who’ve read the blog before will be aware of my penchant for Victorian literature, particularly the gothic. This week, I combined this long-held love with my long-neglected love of the theatre to take advantage of the phenomenally good idea that is the National Theatre Live. Since 2011, stage plays have been broadcast to cinemas across the world, both live at the time of the performance and in ‘encore’ screenings after the run has ended. As well as allowing everyone to see sought after and often sold-out events, it makes them accessible to those in different countries, and those of us in the same country who can’t handle the hassle and expense of a trip to London.

During my student days (damn, I miss those concessions), I was a regular attendee of stage productions in and around my home city, in London, and at the RSC in Stratford, so I’m a little ashamed to admit that I haven’t been to the theatre since 2005, and even though it was on a cinema screen, this production made me realise how much I miss it. The play in question was Nick Dear’s Frankenstein, adapted from Mary Shelley’s novel and with a director I’ve always admired (except when he made The Beach!) in Danny Boyle. As an added bonus, the cast was led by Jonny Lee Miller and my new favourite actor and possibly person, Benedict Cumberbatch, who famously swapped roles between Victor Frankenstein and the Creature on alternate nights throughout the three month run, in an ingenious representation of master becoming slave and vice versa.

It’s always annoyed me that Hollywood persistently reduces the story of Frankenstein to a typical scary movie, and its monster to little more than a zombie, and that those who haven’t read it aren’t aware that it’s so much more than just a gothic horror story. Even Kenneth Branagh’s more faithful film, in which Robert De Niro finally portrayed a credible monster, tried to justify Victor Frankenstein’s selfish actions with a soppy, invented back story. Really, it’s a cautionary tale of artificial creationism and ‘playing God’, a warning against meddling in things we know nothing about, a lesson in never judging a book by its cover, and a devastating illustration of the effects of rejection and revenge. Readers are rarely on Frankenstein’s side by the end, despite the monster giving as good as he gets. Plus, I always have admiration for women like Shelley, who write a long way outside of the genres and themes expected of them, their age and era. Especially when they share my name.

I can’t say enough good things about this production, which I could quite happily sit through both versions of again. The play begins with the startling ‘birth’ of the creature, falling out of his artificial womb and clumsily getting to grips with the functions of his body beneath the amplified sound of his heartbeat, regular electric shocks and cries of pain and frustration. It does cut out a lot of Frankenstein’s obsessive work in creating him, but by allowing the creature this evolution, his voice, and his side of the story, it captures the essence of the novel in being sympathetic to the monster, rather than the man. The performances were astonishing, moving, and hugely impressive, and not just because the scene requires the actors to writhe around in tiny pants for the first twenty minutes.

In the first screening, Cumberbatch played an impaired, innocent Creature, who came across as half developing child, half recovering stroke victim; uncoordinated, vulnerable, joyful, eager to learn, frustrated, hurt, irreparably damaged and ultimately vengeful. Miller’s Frankenstein felt cold, calculating and inhuman in comparison, attached to nothing and no one, ashamed and fearful not only of his creation, but his own abilities. It was a sad, pitiful retelling with a desperate, needy end.

For me, the most electrifying scenes were those where the two characters were caught in conflict; at their first meeting in the mountains, where Frankenstein faces the consequences of his actions; at the creation and subsequent grisly killing of the Creature’s bride, where the monster realises the horror of his own beginning; and at the Creature’s shocking retaliatory murder of Frankenstein’s new wife, leading to their bleak co-dependence in the Antarctic.

The settings were fantastic, a revolving stage with trapdoor, some simple scenery and fantastically impressive lighting all that was needed to transport us from a creepy laboratory in Switzerland to its forests, mountains and Lake Geneva, and from grave robbing in the Orkney Isles to struggling for survival in the south pole. Gorgeous and terrifying music by Underworld added to the stark contrast of nature and industrialisation, man and beast. After the first performance flew by, I couldn’t wait to see if the actors each had a different take on their opposite characters in the next screening.

I wasn’t disappointed, and the same play was transformed by Miller’s creature, who was a lot more baby-like, with a dash of chimpanzee and at the end, even a hint of Gollum. Despite speaking the same lines, he was somehow less articulate, more brutish and full of rage. Cumberbatch’s Frankenstein was colder still, but very much attached to his inflated ego. He may not have been proud of his ‘Adam’, but he was certainly proud of his own superiority in creating him. In this version, both characters seemed less rational and more antagonistic, deliberately taunting each other at every opportunity. My favourite scenes remained the same in both performances, which gives credit to the writing and direction as much as the interchangeable actors, but in this version the end felt a lot more tormenting and disturbed.

All in all, it was a fascinating, ‘compare and contrast’ experience, a remarkable achievement, and I take my proverbial hat off to both actors for the phenomenal amount of work and dedication this project must have taken. While a bit more expensive than the average trip to the cinema, it was worth every penny, and I kind of wish I had spent ten times that amount on a weekend at the National theatre itself. If the screenings tour again, or if it gets the much demanded DVD release, I recommend it to anyone who’s a fan of the book, the director, the cast, or the theatre generally, although it’s probably not for the faint hearted.

On our way home from the second, we were still so excited about the whole thing that we discussed our desire to see the first one again, the possibility of editing the best bits of both versions into one, or splicing together two new versions in which the actors play opposite themselves. This is your universe, Frankenstein...

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