Frankenstein

Sorry it's been a while since I posted but life has this habit at the moment of getting in the way.

Went on Thursday 30th of October to see the rebroadcasting of the 2011 theatre production of 'Frankenstein', directed by Danny Boyle.  Having had to study the book for my English Literature AS Level I had pretty high expectations for it to meet and I have to say that it surpassed them all.

To start with it went straight to the point of view of the creature, acted by Jonny Lee Miller, starting with his birth and it really portrayed the fact that the creature was born an innocent.  His first words are even 'piss off, bugger off' because that is what everybody has been yelling at him.

In concentrating more on the creature's experiences, the play adds a whole level to the story, really bringing forward Victor Frankenstein's, acted by Benedict Cumberbatch, irresponsibility for his actions (i.e. creating the creature) and the fact that the creature, born a baby in an adults body, is only taught fear and hatred and aggression because that is all it is ever shown.  The only person who tries to teach it anything else is De Lacey and that is only because he is blind.  As the creature himself points out "you have no eyes".

It also rather revealed the very shaky logic Victor used in justifying the destruction of the creature's mate.  He justifies it, saying that he feared what would happen it the creatures breed, but being the 'brillant' scientist, surely he could make sure that the female creature couldn't get pregnant?  After that, one can almost see the creature's logic 'you took my wife so I'll take yours'.

For a being who has watched others having love and acceptance but always been rejected because of his appearance, it is to be expected that eventually he is going to start lashing out at those who refuse to share.

I'd say that the production highlighted more than anything the shallowness of human nature - the tendency of people to take a look and go 'oh it's ugly therefore it's a monster'.  I wonder if that's why there had to be charities to help people disfigured by war and disease?  So called normal people took one look and went 'oh ugly, I'm not accepting that'.