Frankenstein
May. 3rd, 2020 01:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anarfeaOkay, so I have seen both of the National Theater Live performances of Frankenstein, and overall I was very impressed! I had never managed to see them before because they were never showing in my town. But I'm annoyed that the censored the show for YouTube, though I understand YouTube's TOS. Anyway the below is not so much a formal write up as just a few scattered musings I had while watching the plays.
I've heard it said that this play is the most faithful adaptation of the novel, and I'm not sure if that's true, but they definitely did take some liberties, and most of what the did I think is an improvement. Like they got rid of the awkward frame story Robert Walton, who was always IMO kind of a throwaway character. And they made a more significant role for Elizabeth, which I had mixed feelings about. Like, on the one hand, I appreciate her being given more to do because the character in the book is essentially a prop. But on the other hand, they make her into a sort of audience stand-in and some of the things she says are just a little too on-the-nose for her to feel like an actual human being. And her motives for loving Victor are never clear, because he sure as hell doesn't love her.
I think Benedict was the better actor in both performances, but I think overall I preferred the Creature!batch version of the production because the Creature for me is what makes or breaks the show. But BC's Victor was super interesting, and very Sherlock-y. So that was nice. I really loved JLM's portrayal of the Creature at the beginning of the play. He had rather less flopping that BC, which to be honest BC's flopping was a bit over the top for me. And his pure joy at discovering things like birds and grass and the sun was wonderful to see. But once they both opened their mouths, I think BC gave the better performance. His creature was more erudite, and felt more world-weary, whereas JLMs felt more childlike. I do think, though, that JLM's Victor was kind of flat. BC definitely found more moments of humor, and also I think just gave a more nuanced performance overall. And I loved the actress who played the female Creature! Such a brilliant dancer! Oh, and I loved the lighting and set design. So well done. Especially those overhead lights!
A couple of moments I wanted to talk about.iwantthatcoat was saying, and I agree, that Victor comes across as aro ace and incapable of love (not saying aroace people are incapable of love! But Victor definitely is), whereas the Creature loves and wants to be loved deeply. They feel that Victor destroys the female Creature partially because he is jealous that the creature understands and feels love and he doesn't. This is a nuance in BC's performance that is really not there in JLMs, who seems more worried that they're going to reproduce. But the anger that BC's Victor feels at the Creature for loving the female is kind of terrible to behold. Also difficult to watch is both of the Victor's perving over the female creature's semi-animated naked body. It made it starkly clear that Victor only sees women as objects, and also is only capable of interacting sexually with a woman who is as object. It's a contrast to how he responds to Elizabeth's attempts to be intimate to him. He says, "who could not desire these breasts," when perving over the female Creature, but when Elizabeth puts his hand over her breast he pulls away.
Elizabeth wants to have children, and her desire to create life the good old fashioned, natural way, is contrasted with Victor's desire to create life from death. And he rejects her, choosing instead to play god and violate nature. I think this symbolic rape of nature that is being brought to the forefront in this adaptation is the reason they added the rape of Elizabeth, a detail not mentioned in the novel.
Normally I'm wary of adaptations adding rapes that aren't in the source material. But I do think this one made sense thematically. I'm super annoyed they had to censor it for Youtube, because I understand JLM and BC played it differently and I would have liked to have seen that. But from what I've heard (and can extrapolate from the Creatures reflections on it afterwards), BC's Creature seems to have regretted the rape and felt like it was necessary to balance the scales because Victor broke his word. Whereas JLM seems to take pleasure in the act of rape and in the memory of it. Of the two, I think JLM's is the braver choice because it's the harder one for the audience to understand and accept. Anyway, I'm annoyed by censorship in general, I do think that a rape scene, like any other scene, tells us something about the characters. And I think they have a place in art.
Anyway, let me know your thoughts!
I've heard it said that this play is the most faithful adaptation of the novel, and I'm not sure if that's true, but they definitely did take some liberties, and most of what the did I think is an improvement. Like they got rid of the awkward frame story Robert Walton, who was always IMO kind of a throwaway character. And they made a more significant role for Elizabeth, which I had mixed feelings about. Like, on the one hand, I appreciate her being given more to do because the character in the book is essentially a prop. But on the other hand, they make her into a sort of audience stand-in and some of the things she says are just a little too on-the-nose for her to feel like an actual human being. And her motives for loving Victor are never clear, because he sure as hell doesn't love her.
I think Benedict was the better actor in both performances, but I think overall I preferred the Creature!batch version of the production because the Creature for me is what makes or breaks the show. But BC's Victor was super interesting, and very Sherlock-y. So that was nice. I really loved JLM's portrayal of the Creature at the beginning of the play. He had rather less flopping that BC, which to be honest BC's flopping was a bit over the top for me. And his pure joy at discovering things like birds and grass and the sun was wonderful to see. But once they both opened their mouths, I think BC gave the better performance. His creature was more erudite, and felt more world-weary, whereas JLMs felt more childlike. I do think, though, that JLM's Victor was kind of flat. BC definitely found more moments of humor, and also I think just gave a more nuanced performance overall. And I loved the actress who played the female Creature! Such a brilliant dancer! Oh, and I loved the lighting and set design. So well done. Especially those overhead lights!
A couple of moments I wanted to talk about.
iwantthatcoat was saying, and I agree, that Victor comes across as aro ace and incapable of love (not saying aroace people are incapable of love! But Victor definitely is), whereas the Creature loves and wants to be loved deeply. They feel that Victor destroys the female Creature partially because he is jealous that the creature understands and feels love and he doesn't. This is a nuance in BC's performance that is really not there in JLMs, who seems more worried that they're going to reproduce. But the anger that BC's Victor feels at the Creature for loving the female is kind of terrible to behold. Also difficult to watch is both of the Victor's perving over the female creature's semi-animated naked body. It made it starkly clear that Victor only sees women as objects, and also is only capable of interacting sexually with a woman who is as object. It's a contrast to how he responds to Elizabeth's attempts to be intimate to him. He says, "who could not desire these breasts," when perving over the female Creature, but when Elizabeth puts his hand over her breast he pulls away.Elizabeth wants to have children, and her desire to create life the good old fashioned, natural way, is contrasted with Victor's desire to create life from death. And he rejects her, choosing instead to play god and violate nature. I think this symbolic rape of nature that is being brought to the forefront in this adaptation is the reason they added the rape of Elizabeth, a detail not mentioned in the novel.
Normally I'm wary of adaptations adding rapes that aren't in the source material. But I do think this one made sense thematically. I'm super annoyed they had to censor it for Youtube, because I understand JLM and BC played it differently and I would have liked to have seen that. But from what I've heard (and can extrapolate from the Creatures reflections on it afterwards), BC's Creature seems to have regretted the rape and felt like it was necessary to balance the scales because Victor broke his word. Whereas JLM seems to take pleasure in the act of rape and in the memory of it. Of the two, I think JLM's is the braver choice because it's the harder one for the audience to understand and accept. Anyway, I'm annoyed by censorship in general, I do think that a rape scene, like any other scene, tells us something about the characters. And I think they have a place in art.
Anyway, let me know your thoughts!
no subject
Date: 2020-05-03 10:42 pm (UTC)As far as the variations, I think JLM’s Victor is work-obsessed and angry, whereas BC’s is truly disconnected. Yeah, I absolutely read him as Aro-ace. As such, I feel bad for him. He doesn’t understand how to connect in the purely visceral way the Creature does, and I see him as jealous of this. Keeping with a father-son dynamic, it is a parent whose son has achieved success in ways that the parent never could. And takes things away in retribution. JLM’s Creature feels like teen angst gone awry at times, and never fully matures, but BC’s makes it to adulthood, even fear of death.
In any case, everyone should attempt to watch both for the brilliant differences in acting choices.