(Rated 3/5 )
As the audience settles into its seats and waits for the show to start so does the actor playing The Creature, in a large bubble-womb centre stage, in this innovative stage version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein directed by Danny Boyle.
And then the creature, and the show, spring to life triggered by impressive stage effect lightning/electricity. So he is born, naked and scarred from the stitching of his patchwork body.
Jonny Lee Miller spends many minutes alone on stage discovering his body; how it moves, how to sit, stand and cries out in shock and wonder at it all; as the actor said like a young toddler but in a fully-grown man’s body. And then he starts to encounter people and learn how to be…
Jonny’s interpretation of the creature was superb; played with great sensitivity and emotional intelligence at times far greater than the other characters he encounters, especially Victor Frankenstein, his creator. Benedict Cumberbatch, addicted to his revolutionary work, excellently plays the scientist as closed-off from other humans, especially his fiancée Elizabeth (Naomie Harris).
Unlike in the classic films, this creature is not a monster with neck bolts and with the focus of the story on his creator. Rather he is the protagonist. The production and Jonny’s performance inspire true empathy. He learns how it feels to be human, to love, to desire, to need, to savour the words of Milton, and to express as though a character from a Shakespearean play, and like in many such tragedies to trust and have that trust betrayed, to experience great loss and to be denied simply because of your appearance. He is like an alien showing us how we are, at times not a very palatable view. Can we really wonder that he turns to anger and rage and in being shown so little care that he does so in return?
The interactions between The Creature and Frankenstein crackle in intensity as they conflict in their analyses of the meaning of life. Almost all the other characters feel like extras, undeveloped by the script and with little to work on, they come across as wasted and stereotypical. Victor’s father (George Harris) seems almost robotic, perhaps this was deliberate – an indication of the parenting of Victor and maybe how he became shut-down (emotionally) himself. Having no real sympathy for many of the supporting characters and with muted reaction from them we almost feel nothing when Victor’s brother, William, is killed.
However the rape and murder of Elizabeth Elizabeth
And so on the two battle through a kind of no-man’s land and we are left wondering who is in fact the more human.
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