Danny Boyle's Frankenstein

In June 2009, London's National Theatre piloted an experiment, in which a production of Phedre was transmitted live to 70 cinemas across the United Kingdom.

Eleven plays, 325 screening venues and much acclaim later, Danny Boyle's highly anticipated Frankenstein is the penultimate performance of NT Live's second season. On March 17, Kino Aero played surrogate theater to the adaptation of Mary Shelley's seminal horror, and Boyle's focus on the Creature's human side makes for an emotional piece of theatre. 

Life-giving bolts of lightning. Dementedly cackling scientists. Torch-wielding lynch mobs. You will find none of these in the 127 Hours director's stage production, which derives more from Shelley's book than the 1931 film, and is angled very much from the Creature's point of view.

A deafening bell toll heralds the birth of the Creature (Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller in alternating performances), which paws from a semi-translucent pocket of material, resembling a womb.

Tearing itself free and writhing on the floor in fits of terror and anguish, the deformed wretch's struggle is a hybrid of infuriated toddler and shell-shocked soldier.

After what feels a lifetime, the Creature eventually manages to stand, and we are greeted by its ugliness; a naked, scarred patchwork of body parts. Nonetheless, there is something decidedly human about this "monster."

Following an early face-off with its creator, Victor Frankenstein, which barely hints at the electrifying exchanges that are to come, the Creature flees.

It's only in the De Lacey household that the Creature finds solace; the touching relationship between the Creature and the blind old man (a delightfully chirpy Karl Johnson), sees the former expediently adapt to the ways of the world.

This is also the first indication of Cumberbatch's ability to extract humor from his tragic role. Never using deformity or speech impediment for cheap laughs, instead he regales De Lacey with unexpected bursts of Milton, and mimics the old man's body language as a child might.

Yet the Creature's fear of rejection becomes all too real when De Lacey's son Felix (Daniel Millar) and wife Agatha (Lizzie Winkler) discover the "fiend" and try to kill it. And when he burns the entire family alive, Cumberbatch's character commits itself to inexorable tragedy.

It is no surprise that the play's most sublime moments occur between the two leads. Despite the dissatisfying "introduction," their second exchange is an intense showdown, prompting many of the original novel's morality issues.

After the Creature murders Frankenstein's little brother (William Nigh), the troubled scientist is forced to rendezvous with his creation high in the Alps.

Filled with notions of murderous revenge, Frankenstein's rage is quashed when he learns his Creature can talk, it appears to have feelings, and that it evens feels abandoned by its "master."

Here, Cumberbatch again finds the "human" element of the Creature; why should it be made to suffer? Why is it justified that Frankenstein destroy something just because he gave life to it? Why shouldn't the Creature have a love of its own?

Whoever plays the Creature on any given night is guaranteed to steal the limelight, but actually Frankenstein and his gruesome conception are a double act, albeit a desperate and none-too-comical one.

Although the Creature is not a human of natural birth, his philosophies often put Frankenstein to shame, while the scientist himself is drawn  from his reclusive home life to discover what, or who, is perhaps the only friend he has.

Both Cumberbatch and Miller in their respective guises are remarkable in threading together this relationship. Cumberbatch owns the humility and pathos of the Creature, but is much more than this: intelligent, malignant and, in a heart-rending finale, ironically paternal.

Far from being the good guy gone awry, Miller's Frankenstein isn't exactly a pantomime villain, either. The actor's portrayal of vanity is curbed by fear of, and for the Creature. Ultimately, Frankenstein is as wretched as that which he created. 

Kudos also, to Frankenstein's thoughtful stage design. Despite an incongruous appearance from some sort of "steampunk express" early on (no idea what that was all about), the rest of the set straddles the traditional and the contemporary, and adds a few flourishes of "nature" (a rainstorm pelting down on the Creature is quite beautiful).

The rest of the cast reside somewhat in the shadows of Cumberbatch and Miller, although Naomie Harris, as Elizabeth, Frankenstein's much-ignored fiancée, is a stand-out support.

It would be easy for Harris to play the damsel in distress; instead, she is the voice of sanity, the only person to understand both her fiancée and his creation. Still, this cannot deter her fate in Frankenstein's most horrific scene.

The production's only weak link is George Harris, as the scientist's father, whose hammy histrionics raised a few audible snickers from the stalls.

Boyle's Frankenstein retains the charged atmosphere of Shelley's original, and with its timeless monologues and compelling leads, here is a monstrously good version of a story that will never cease to be told. 

Will Noble can be reached at
wnoble@praguepost.com