National Theatre Live: Frankenstein

My only wish with seeing this on the big screen is " I wish I had seen it live"..

My daughter took me to see it at the Luna cinema in Leederville on Sunday and the viewing was Jonny lee miller as Frankenstein and Benedict Cumberbatch as Victor.

I was moved, by Jonny's performance as he takes you past the monster and you see a man in search of love and acceptance. I was at loss for words, you cannot fault the mans performance..Had I got to know Frankenstein, I would have taken him in and befriended him? maybe.

Benedict Cumberbatch was very good as Victor also, a mad genius, a tortured soul with no one recognizing his brilliance and what he could do, or believed he was as good as God. He found the secret to life itself. He made man.

You feel sorry for him, yet angry as well, He disregards friends and family in his desperate pursuit of his monster, and will do anything and all to destroy it, not taking into account that his monster has become educated and only wants to be accepted in main society.. something we all crave, inside us there is a bit of victor/Frankenstein. If there is one thing to do this weekend check out your local cinema and see if they are screening this gem, it will blow you away.

A VERY INTERESTING LOOK FROM DANNY BOYLE'S EYES OF THE TORTURED, MISUNDERSTOOD, " MONSTER". BRAVO!

Last night I saw the second screening of Frankenstein. The movie theatre showed the play twice, two weeks apart, the first time with Benedict Cumberbatch as the Creature, the second time with Jonny Lee Miller as the Creature.

Since it was my second time watching the play I was really interested to see how the different actors would interpret the monster. JLM initially interpreted the monster initially hesitant and drooling, basing his on monster his two year old son. BC based his monster on stroke victims, so less drolling but also less overall control of his limbs. Amazing how the same yet different.

I'd have to say, after watching both castings, I am slightly biased towards Jonny Lee Miller as the better monster and Benedict Cumberbatch the better Doctor. The play started with the creature "being born" and then learning to walk. When BC played the monster, that was the only part of the play I didn't like. BC took nearly 20 minutes of flopping around the stage, which was very "arty" but a bit too long. For JLM his beginning was much shorter, which I appreciated, as it brought the rest of the fantastic dialogue in sooner. (Or maybe I was just more prepared for the opening this time around).

For myself it was the scene with just the monster and the doctor talking in the mountain cave that was phenomenal with this casting! When the monster asks the doctor to make him a bride, Jonny Lee Miller brought such a "theatrical" flare to the creature, it reminded me of both Shakespeare and Phantom of the Opera. BC as the neurotic doctor was spot on as you could almost follow his decent into madness.

I hope they end up putting this filming out on DVD just so I can rewatch this over and over (They probably won't, but I can dream!) So well done!

In the face of progress, there is always fear of the unknown. In that fear, we show our inherent instincts, putting into question the words that the blind man quotes. The creature is born pure, learning from humans everything but retaining, in the end, only hatred. The creature seems to prove that progress contradicts our nature in some capacity. A look at modernity from the eyes of an innocent creature, supposedly not a human. Yet, we contradictory recognise more humanity in him then in the people that don't see him as such.

Victor is one of them. He was able to create a creature who learns the value of being human sooner then him. Frankenstein seeks in the dead what he can't recognise in the living. For he doesn't know how to relate to others, and can't seem to find the value on his wife to be. "She is the perfect wife...", says Victor, not in face of the woman already at his side, but of the "perfect" woman he later creates. Silent, with no purpose but to serve his own.

He asks the creature how if feels to be in love "That's how it feels...?". And so, Victor achieves what, for him, was the unachievable. He finds love, but not by or for himself. And because he doesn't know love, he can't allow his creation to have it. Progress seemed the only answer, and in the end, it is the only thing Frankenstein has. But at what cost?

First of all the experience of "almost" being there was really unique... the sound in the cinema was up nice and loud so you really FELT the sound like you would in the theatre.... and what a brilliant way for thousands of people to enjoy the performances of the National Theatre....

Okay so now on to the play itself... WOW!!! The set design and staging were wonderful, innovative, with minimalist hints of all the locales... Danny Boyle's direction was inspired and energetic...but the ACTING, well really something to behold...

The premise here is an actor's dream.. the actors switch nightly in playing the roles of Victor and the Creature. This is truly inspired, especially since the characters are each a side of the other. Before the performance there was a short behind-the-scenes film, and Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch talked about how they approached the roles... but seeing is believing.. The performance I saw was with Cumberbatch at the Creature and Miller as Victor Frankenstein.. both were very good, but the show belongs to the Creature... and Cumberbatch was INCREDIBLE! the sheer physical demands of the performance had me tired just watching!! The play really focuses on the Creature's growth from stumbling, grunting "thing" to a fully-formed thinking being. "Frankenstein" is one of my favorite novels and I think I have seen just about every film adaptation, and at least one other stage version. Highly recommended!!!