We all know Frankenstein’s
monster – the block head, the shock of dark hair on its flat top, the bolts
in the neck, the ill-fitting clothes, the immense iron shoe-clad feet, the
lumbering gait, arms outstretched. We erroneously call this monstrosity ‘Frankenstein,’
not realising that is actually the name of the scientist who created him; the creature
is, in fact, unnamed, although as this production illustrates so clearly, both
creature and scientist are two halves of one being – creator and created – thus
the title of Frankenstein being applicable to both man and creature. But
underneath the myth and horror-appropriation of the story is Mary Shelley’s
novel, Frankenstein; or,
the Modern Prometheus, and this production – created for London
First published in
January 1818 when Mary Shelley was twenty years old and pregnant herself, the
novel is often credited as the first work of science-fiction. In the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the age of science was beginning –
surgeons and anatomists were plumbing the human body for its secrets and
workings, the discovery of electricity was almost visible on the horizon, and
the modern world was about to explode in all its hulking smoking burning glory
into full being through the Industrial Revolution. There was much less of a
distinction between art and science as we know them today, and for many writers
and thinkers of the time, the two were intertwined. At the heart of Shelley’s Frankenstein is not Hollywood
All of these
concepts are captured in Danny Boyle and Nick Dear’s version for the National
Theatre. Boyle, a film director best known for Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire, and 28 Days Later, returned to
working in the theatre after fifteen years, and did so amidst preparations for
the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games. If you look at the opening
ceremony and this Frankenstein, there is a large amount of cross-pollination of
ideas, sentiments, and technical wizardry, and this is partly due to an
incredibly thorough and detailed book used by Boyle called Pandemonium:
The Coming of the Machine, which documents the Industrial Revolution
over the course of two hundred odd years. The connective tissue which unites
Frankenstein and the opening ceremony is fragile but strong, and the scale on
which the two pieces unfolds is mesmerising – one is an intimate, more
crucible-like evocation of the other, whereby the larger does not sacrifice any
of the humanity or theatrical ingenuity of the smaller.
Staged in the
Olivier theatre at the National Theatre, Frankenstein
unfolds on a scale we can only dream of in Australia, as did the RSC’s
Richard II last year. A high
curved wall runs around the back of the stage, with concealed doors and panels
set within it; a revolve sits centrestage, and the stage itself extends some
way into the audience. Above the stage, a bank of thousands of naked lightbulbs
hang, flickering ominously with an electrical hum, the very lifeforce which
brings forth our wildest dreams. Drawing on the skills of the creative team who
would go on to create the opening ceremony with him – Mark Tildesley (set), Suttirat
Larlarb (costume), Toby Sedgwick (movement), Underworld (music and sound design)
– Boyle fashions a world where ideas of science, industrialisation, humanity
and power sit alongside each other as pebbles do a beach. There is a fragility
here, a sparseness which foregrounds the humanness of the story, of the
production, for even though it unfolds across a large canvas, the story is
essentially that of the two men – Victor Frankenstein, and his creation – and how
they pursue each other endlessly, to their eventual ends. Elements fly in from
above (the farmers’ cottage) or rise from below (the crofters’ hut in the
Orkneys, Elizabeth
The role of
Frankenstein and the creature alternates in performance between Benedict
Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller (both of whom, incidentally, have played
Sherlock Holmes on television). In this performance, Miller played the
Creature, while Cumberbatch played the scientist. Usually told as the story of
a man hunting the secrets of life, in Nick Dear’s adaptation, the point of view
of the story is flipped, so we see the Creature’s point of view, see how he is
affected by Frankenstein’s meddling and creating. As the Creature, Miller
brings an almost infant-like physicality to the role, a youthfulness and
wide-eyed wonder which belie his physically-mature appearance. In interviews
for the production, Miller says how he drew upon his two year old son’s
behaviour, the experiences of “a pre-verbal child,” and this shows. Neither
actor rehearsed either part in isolation, so there was a cross-flow of ideas
from one to the other, to make the roles as symbiotic and dynamic as possible;
for his research for the Creature, Cumberbatch drew upon the experiences and
physicalities of recovering stroke victims, the way they have to relearn the
vocabularies of speech, coordination and movement, and these ideas feed into
the Creature’s physicality too. It’s a physically demanding performance for
either actor, and it tremendously thrilling to watch. As the scientist, Cumberbatch
brought his trademark fierce intelligence to bear and his Frankenstein is, at
times, a close cousin to his Sherlock, as I suppose was to be expected. But as
the Creature makes his request, his demand, of the scientist, both their fates
are instantly intertwined, for better or worse, and neither is whole without
the other. It is, in a way, a terribly affecting tale of morality, love and
humanity.
The rest of the
cast appear as needed, almost as ancillary characters, though two perhaps stand
out. De Lacey, the blind old man who teaches the Creature to read and write
(via Milton’s Paradise Lost), treats
him with a dignity and respect which should be afforded to every human; being
blind, he of course cannot see the Creature’s disfigurement except with his
hands, and even then he does not shy or run from him, but remarks about how he
too has been in the wars. The other character who does not shy from the
Creature is Elizabeth
The play, as with
Shelley’s book, is full of ideas and implications. While the experience of
seeing it in a cinema (years later as the case may be) does not compare with
being in the same room, it perhaps gains an intimacy which you cannot capture
in a theatre, the intimacy of the cinematic close-up. Here, you can see the
anguish and pain and feeling on their faces in incredible detail, you feel the
Creature’s plight more than you perhaps might in a theatre. As the play ends,
and both men walk into the brightness of their fate, the Creature drawing
Frankenstein further on and further up into the Arctic wasteland, there’s a
stunned kind of silence which descends throughout the theatre. A silence which
comes from the magnitude of wonder at mankind’s reach, grasp and ceaseless
striving for perfection.
In Wonder all Philosophy began: in Wonder it
ends, and admiration fill up the interspace. But the first Wonder is the
Offspring of Ignorance; the last is the Parent of Adoration.
– Samuel Taylor Coleridge
– Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Theatre playlist: 76. Industrial Revolution, Underworld
.jpg){kind=link}
No comments:
Post a Comment