NTL Frankenstein...

 I have just returned from seeing the National Theatres production of Frankenstein. For those who have not heard of it it is BRILLIANT.

http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/63286/productions/frankenstein.html

NT and Danny Boyle took it in a different direction.
They cast two red hot stars who were to alternate the roles of The Creature and The Doctor on each night. I can't begin to imagine the unbelievable strain this put on these two.
Having to flip flop
emotions
and lines
and motivation
and physicality
and bearing
and behaviour
and language
and style
and costumes
and make up

             andandand

 night after night after night after.
There is a good reason why they tied for Best Actor at the Oliviers.
They are remarkable.
Both of them.

I waited until I had seen both versions until I blogged. I wanted to have the full picture.
It left me conflicted and, in retrospect, perhaps I should have written the two separately because
hot damn
did each leave me with a
different echo in my head,
a different resonation in my soul
and a different taste in my mouth.

The first one I saw was with Jonny Lee Miller (hereafter referred to as JLM to save my poor fingers a bit) as The Doctor

 (not THE Doctor, Mr. Who does not play a role)

and Benedict Cumberbatch (hereafter referred to BC) as The Creature.
And the second one with the roles reversed.

Please forgive if it is disjointed and back and forth and confusing. But my mind is reeling.

Ok, so. What is there to say? I am so happy I saw both versions. When I saw JLM as The Doctor, to be unfairly honest, I was sort of shocked by his sweatiness. I understand that the stage lights are hot and his costume was heavy but he just sort of ignored it like it wasn't there.

Which it was.

Very much so.

It was dripping off him, saturating his hair. It was very much evident. He didn't use it, he seemed to just pretend it wasn't happening. I thought this odd.

But (despite my adoration and respect for BC) this is not a hate for JLM, by no means. Read on and you'll see.

He was sweaty as the Creature too, but that was good and fine, the Creature is a hot mess, sweat is to be expected. I was impressed that he has no self consciousness and just let the drool fly, literally,

(although I was worried that it would drown his co-stars a few times...)

Nevertheless he said that his portrayal was based on his 2 year old son, and nothing drools like a two year old...except for a hot Basset Hound perhaps. This was made most obvious by his absolute delight in discovering he could fit his foot in his mouth....

and that it tasted bad.


BC said he studied people recovering from stroke and other brain illness, watched them learn again how to manipulate their bodies, how to make this leg go there, this hand grasp this.

Both takes are valid. The Creature is, technically, a baby when he emerges. He needs to learn first hand how to move, what everything does, how to work muscles and balance and dexterity. Just like JLM's 2 year old.

However, BC's idea is also valid; because The Creature is made of adults, he is composed of body parts that have seen years of use but are being driven by a new brain, and this new brain must learn how to manipulate muscles and limbs that have been used before, have been there done that in another lifetime with another captain at the helm. They are not new-born limbs with no strength and co-ordination, but the brain behind them is unused to moving THESE particular muscles and limbs. It was used, before, to drive another person's body. Muscle memory still has to fire at the controls of this new vehicle.

The Creature is a highly physical role. At the beginning he is born, alone, and must learn quickly, like all mammals,
how to stand
how to walk
how to run.

BC was unashamed of flopping around like a fish on a line on the stage for 10 minutes, wearing nothing but a tiny loincloth that I was worried
             (and hoping)
would slip off.
In this section he was more convincing.
He was more abandoned.
Less self aware.
JLM made it look more like a dance, the moves were choreographed. He was thinking of each one as he did it.

However if I hadn't seen BC do this part
                 so raw,
                 so naked,
perhaps I would not have seen it as such. 

At first I thought that perhaps JLM is better suited to the Doctor, he is a little wooden, a little too expressionless in parts (but not always) although he is a fine example of physical fitness which served him well, because
DAMN
is that a hugely physical role.
Although BC was more physical,
JLM more mental.

BC was never still as The Creature (I'll just call him TC from here on. My fingers tire already)
He was leaping and
                jumping and
                      climbing and
      shifting and
                                spinning and
                    never not doing
             SOMETHING,

like he was on fire with life,
he was consumed with it,
he had to keep moving because he COULD,

he was Mike Myers' little helmeted kid tethered to the jungle gym.
He was energy,
just pure energy. Fire and spark and muscle and joy at being so.

JLM, from the get go, was a more thoughtful Creature, a more introspective one. He had the physical to fall back on when he needed to, but he seemed more interested in firing his brains than his muscles.

           I started to think my initial impression of him being better as The Doctor was wrong,.


JLM delivered his final monologue with great conviction and emotion, when he is telling The Doctor (ok, he'll just be TD from here, don't confuse it with any banking institutions!) how he failed his own creation. He thinks TD is dead; at first he is disappointed that his game will end, but then he is overcome with emotion,
the sense of loss,
that he's been deserted and left alone again by the only other creature who can understand him.
His delivery actually made my eyes prick a little.

With BC's creature in this scene you get more a feeling of sadness that his toy is broken. That the game has ended, and that he will become bored without a playmate.

JLM's doctor....

was a selfish bastard.

He was in it for his own pride and glory. He cared not a toss about others, he only cared about his work

(I think I've dated him)

it was all about himhimhim.....he is not a likable man in the slightest. He is brilliant, yes, but shallow and empty.
   I did not like that Doctor at all. (to be clear, the character, not the portrayal. It speaks of JLMs own talent that he evoked emotion from his audience)

BC's doctor (may I just say this man is an insane talent, INSANE.) made me understand his motives; he made me maybe not hate him so much.
He found humour in the lines and delivered them with a smirk.
He was sweaty too, but he made it work for the character, he didn't ignore it and just hope for the best,
                             he wiped his face with his hands and sleeve,
                  he used it to express the manic fire in the doctor's head,
       the twitchiness of the brilliant and borderline insane.

In this handling of normal bodily functions I was more impressed with BC's ability to use what was happening, not to just plunder ahead as if nothing was happening....

It was fascinating to see two actors bring two totally different takes to the same roles. One scene that really crystallized the difference between the two doctors, for me anyway,
                (because I am a girl who,
                  at heart, is a sappy sot who,
                    like TC,
just wants love and storybook endings)

was when Victor tells Elizabeth he loves her as he's walking out of their bedchamber,
just after their wedding,
to find and kill TC, and Elizabeth,
silly girl that she is,
thinks maybe tonight, their wedding night, would hold something else in store....

JLM delivered the line almost as an afterthought, a
"oh, yeah, we just got married and I should maybe remember that there are other people in this world besides me and my creation",
which worked very well for his more...uptight... interpretation of the character.

BC delivered it as a truth.
As a promise to return, not an afterthought,
more of a "I should have said this first, but my brain ran away with me"
apology almost.

With JLM as Victor you walk away, or I did at least, not feeling that he was at all sorry for what he had created, just sorry that it had gone wrong. That he was PROUD of what he'd done, and why not?
                  He created LIFE!
But he was angry that it spiraled out of his control despite the fact that for all intents and purposes
he was it's KING,
it's GOD!
How dare it not obey him?
        At the heart of it; JLM's Victor is a control freak, this' thing' can not co-exist with people, it's hideous and disobedient and thinks for itself. It must be destroyed. After all, it was just an experiment, it should behave as such, it should not think that it's deserving of love and affection, it should not go about thinking it's more than it is..
                                         It should not think at all!
              I get that, that's how I interpreted the character when I first read Shelley's book.

BC made you aware, with the exact same script and lines, that he regretted what he'd done, how he'd created life and then denied it the chance to live. He created a likeness of himself and then was shocked when it seeked companionship rather than solitude,
         love rather than hate,
that it had all the same emotions and needs and desires of a human, but would never,
could never,
be accepted. He regretted having to learn that there are consequences to his actions at the expense of his wife's life. That she died because he'd broken a promise.
He was not angry, not really,
not at TC.
He understood. It killed him. He had no purpose left anymore. He'd made a mistake and he, his wife, his brother, paid the ultimate price for it.

The Creature did too. A high price.

As he said (which was more noticeable, or at least more meaningful, more memorable with JLM's Creature) that at the hand of his father he learned the hardest and final lesson about being a man; he learned how to lie.

And he hated that he killed, did Jonny's Creature.
                          He hated it.

But the logical mind he had been given,
the mind that saw black and white,

that mind told him that there are consequences to every action and that the punishment must fit the crime.

Victor killed the creature's bride, therefore the creature must kill Victor's bride.
      There was no alternative.
But you could see, in the conflict and the torture all over JLM's face, how much he truly regretted it, how much he hated to end the life of a kind, smart woman who had treated him as an equal.  

His Creature had come a long way from the one who had slaughtered a kind, blind old man who had educated him, who had promised him that his family would accept him.
They didn't.
They feared him,

                                          like everyone else who could see him.

He burned the whole family.

Even the kind old blind man, who had given him the power of language and reason and logic.

                                       But the Kind Old Blind man had Lied to him.

The Kind Old Blind Man thought his family was better then they were.

Perhaps he was better off that way. Not having to live the rest of his days knowing his own son,
             his own flesh and blood,
was capable of such intolerance and hostility.

 JLMs Creature learned from them that appearances are important.
That if no one could SEE him then he was just as good as them...
but when they saw him,
              his scarred. twisted face,
                     his sutured body....
well. Then he was no longer a rational logical, thinking person, but a 
                                  monster.
(Girls, especially, we know what this is like. We're raised with it, saturated with it, inundated with it daily. If we are pretty and busty we must be stupid (psst. Fella's, it's not OUR IQ which drops as the chest size increases, it's yours) and if we are plain and bookish then we must be smart...and probably best left alone because what would the guys think if they saw us with her? I am not saying that there are not women who are just as shallow.
There are.
They exist
But not, often, in as great numbers.

The Shallow Girls tend more towards power and money than looks ;) )


Them, the Kind Old Blind Man and his kinfolk
 he destroyed out of pain and fear and self loathing.

Elizabeth he destroyed because he had no choice, in his mind.
Out of love,
and fear, and
     lessons learned.

To my eyes; BC's Creature didn't seem to have that same regret, his creature was saddened that he had to kill, but just sort of got on with it.
He slaughtered the Kind Old Blind Man and his ungrateful kin out of anger.
                 Out of take thatedness,
out of 'you hurt me and I'll hurt you worseedness'
out of acting out,
externalizing his pain and shame,
not rationalizing it, and not, really, learning from it.


JLM's creature evolved more.

JLM killed Elizabeth with sorrow. He did it because that's the only way he could reach TD. He did it because of the pain and suffering he was feeling at the loss of his own bride.

You felt that BC was killing Elizabeth more to hurt Victor than to teach him a lesson.

As for The Bride....
JLM's doctor, I feel, had never any intention of giving her to TC, he just wanted to
                    prove he could,
he wanted to create perfection,
to dangle it before TC,
                    then to take it away again because he could.
See? Control Freak.

BCs doctor I really feel meant to give her to TC, he had compassion, he had feelings, he felt bad.
It wasn't until he thought about them breeding that he thought, 
maybe,
not such a good idea.
But I don't feel he'd created her with the intention of destroying her.

Two shows, same script, same direction, same setting and two TOTALLY different experiences.

It felt fresh, like I hadn't seen it before, noticing certain lines more prominently with each actors interpretation of each character...

As I see the bottom line;
JLMs Victor was
angry and self absorbed.
Proud and infallible.
Arrogant and righteous.
He had few regrets

and fewer emotions

that didn't directly involve him or his work.
He wasn't particularly moved by the devastation that his actions brought to others as long as his work continued.

BCs Victor was empathetic and regretful.
Had the ability to care and love.
Was devastated by his own shortcomings and mistakes.
He was horrified by what he had caused to occur.

JLMs Creature was hurt and confused. He was lost in these emotions that he didn't have the capacity to understand,
but he yearned to and tried to
understand.
     He wanted people to understand what their actions caused. He wanted to teach, not harm. He understood that the only person who could ever love him was his master and that he could now become the master himself, but he wouldn't be as cruel.
            He would teach him better.
                                          He wouldn't abandon him.
He just wanted to belong.
He learnt from Paradise Lost that you CAN find paradise and if you're good enough and try hard enough, then maybe you can keep it. Maybe it won't be lost. And if it is, maybe you can find another one....

BCs creature was angry and resentful and like a petulant 2 year old.
WHY can't he have what he wants!
It's not FAIR and someone has to pay for it!
He learnt anger and hatred and that you hurt and destroy what you don't understand,

that you throw your toys,
              hard,
at those who try to take them from you.

What Paradise Lost seemed to teach him was that when you find something good, it will
inevitably
be taken from you.
Do unto others, but do it first, sort of deal.
And he was angry about that. He was angry that he couldn't have everything
and Victor was to blame
and Victor was going to be punished for it.


I can completely switch tactics here an go into what makes a great actor great. (also VERY curious to see how JLM handles Sherlock now that BC has made the role so perfectly him) I could go on to say that today's young actors lack of skill can be blamed, partially, on the fact that movies now, for the most part, are like a mobile over a crib. They are colourful and pretty and they move and they entertain you and you don't even have to do a damn thing to enjoy it. Just sit and stare. They spoon feed and keep your eyes moving with kablooies and lights and fast movement and shiny things. If this is what you were raised on, and this is what you're starring in and this is buying you 12 million dollar houses before you're even out of your teens...well, what's the motivation to learn your craft? Why bother? The CGI and the editing team do it for you. The director tell you what to do when and how..(I am not saying there isn't good, young talent out there, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find a whole lot of it in the under 30 crowd....)

This is (one of) my theory, for what it's worth;

Jonny Lee Miller is (almost) 40, Benedict Cumberbatch is (almost) 36.
These are not kids.
These boys were raised on movies and toys that expected you to participate,
to have a brain.
To take an active role in your entertainment.
They were raised to use their imagination.
In their formative years they had to make a toy do something. It didn't do it for you.

They probably made forts out of sofa cushions, as did my sister and I, they probably played more with the box than the toy inside, as did my sister and I, they probably read books that were not about toxic relationships with sparkly vampires but more about the battle of 'good' and 'evil' and internal conflicts and seeing yourself in your adversary who is a vampire who turns into a fire ball in the sun, not a disco ball.

Their movies and tv shows, like my sister and I, were softer, subtler,
            less graphic-ing, more acting.
They were about more genuine problems and feelings and less about how many kablooies can we have in the first 5 minutes and how much money can we spend on spfx?
And how many people can we kill
in how many graphic ways
for no real reason other than to show we can do it?
                 (Oh... hang about... is that Dr. Frankenstein?)

Again, don't get me wrong, there are films out there today that are subtle and clever and thoughtful....(not a whole heck of a lot of them are coming out of the US,) but they are there, but who sees them? The teens? The 20somethings? Not many.
Do I enjoy senseless movies that can just pacify me for a few hours with no effort on my part?
               Absolutely.
But not always.

Here we are now.
Entertain us.

So my review has taken me through the play, out through the other side into why youngsters don't have the same mettle as Mr. Cumberbatch and Mr. Miller. The same abilities.

I wonder what would happen if you placed Taylor Lautner on stage and asked the same of him that was asked of these two. What would happen? Would you get two totally different takes on the exact same character? Would you be able to
                               hearseefeel
with the same spoken lines two totally different men?

Yeah.
Ok

Till next time. Be kind to the Creature you create, because it may destroy you in the end.

Irishred