These last two nights, I've seen the most incredible performances. I will not o justice is explaining them but I also want to try and jot a few things down to remember for the future what the experience was like. Just know ahead of time that I will probably do a horrifically poor job at describing what happened.
On Wednesday night, my small group ladies and I went to go see the National Theatre's production of Frankenstein. Written by Nick Dear and directed by Danny Boyle, it stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller as both the Doctor and the Creature. Each night they switch off and we were lucky enough to see Benedict at the Creature.
The show begins with the birth of the Creature. This was probably the most uncomfortable ten minutes of the show. The Creature literally emerged from this large glowing sac and spent ten minutes trying to move, stand, control limbs, make some sort of sound, breathe. It was like trying to watch a stroke victim or someone with extreme Parkinsons attempt to function. It was nearly unbearable- you wanted to jump onstage and held him to his feet. I'm sure that the discomfort was exactly what Danny Boyle was trying to achieve.
Unlike the book, Dear's script focused on the point of view of the Creature. Other than a short camoe at the beginning, Victor isn't seen until a third to nearly half-way through the play. We get to watch the Creature become tortured and abused by men until he is befriended by a blind man who, because of his blindness, cannot see the Creatur'es hideous and therefore does not judge. He teaches the Creature to speak, to read and write, to understand and question and his growth is remarkable. The passing of time was reflected in the shifting of lights and the impression of snow and was done so creatively. When the old man's family treats the Creature as the previous men treated him, he sets his sight upon his Creator, Victor, and lures him out by murdering Victor's younger brother.
The intereaction between Victor and the Creature was phenomenal and made me curious as to how it was on the flip-side when the roles were switched. Again, because the focus is more on the Creature than Victor, there is a lot of discussion of abandonment of children and the need for companionship and finally convinces Victor to make him a companion. The focus then becomes on Victor's "mad-scientist" escapade through Oxford and then up to the Orkney Islands to create a companion for the Creature. Some of the funniest lines came from Ewan and his nephew Rab, two Scotsmen helping Victor procure body-parts from graves.
The scene where Victor and the Creature come face-to-face again with the Creature's companion was also extremely powerful- it was very easy to see either sides and so hard to figure out who to empathize with. It certainly speaks not only to the power of Dear's words but Benedict's acting as well. Again, I wish I could have seen it the other way around because so many reviews I've read recommended seeing Miller as the Creature and Benedict as Victor. One day....
In the end, when Victor sets off in pursuit of the Creature, both fading in the brightness of the light made you feel like their chase would be never-ending, similar to the feeling you get when you read Shelly's novel. The special effects of the production were superb as well. Below is a picture of the train at the very beginning, which all the sounds being supplied by the actors themselves. The cottage and field of the blind man and his family were cleverly done as was the effects during the dock scenes with the Creature and Victor's younger brother.
As I said at the beginning, I've done an incredibly poor job as describing just how fascinating this performance was and so I would recommend trying to see if this ever ends up on Netflix or anything and see it for yourself. You will not regret it.
Then last night, I saw War Horse. I was left absolutely speechles. I have no idea how they were able to essentially recreate a WWI battle on stage but they did. There is no way that I can recap properly so I'm going to bullet-point this out. And yes, I just used the word bullet-point as a verb.
-The horses were phenomenal. With the little foal, it was a little distracting with the actor puppeteering his head but you never noticed it with the larger Joey and Topthorn. I felt like there were real horses up onstage. The actors also supplied the "voice" of the horse, which included at times, screams of pain when the horse was tangled up in the barbed wire.
-There was a singer (sometime accompanied by an accordion player) who sang both original as well as WWI-era songs that essentially narrated the passage of time but not in a blatant "Balladeer" way like in assassins.
-At 0:40 in the clip above, you get an amazing view of the stage and the screen above it. That was maybe my favorite part of the whole thing. It essentially looked like a torn piece of parchment or old journal page and not only indicated the date and location of many scenes, but also have hand drawn style sketches to represent locations, emotions and passage of time. At 1:22 you see another little example of the effect of that upper screen. I got chills when drops of blood turned into poppies. Ugh, couldn't handle that.
-Ironically, the funniest bits came in the second half, which was all about the war. The best scene was between main character Albert and his close friend David. Laughed so hard. "Are you saying your horse can read? I'll take your silence as a 'neeeiiiiiighhhhhh'."
-When the horses died, some of them were incomplete mechanical puppets that easily collapsed on stage to signify the massive devastation of the cavalry during WWI. These poor horses were absolutely no match for the machine guns and tanks.
-Speaking of tanks. Guys, they brought a tank onto the stage. A tank! This is like Miss Saigon bringing the helicopter on stage. See both above and below. The lights, effects, sounds and background images totally made this show the phenomenon that it is.
- 0:53 and 1:06 and 1:23 give you a slight idea of what the battles looked like on stage.
-In essence, the show isn't about good versus bad. Albert's father isn't a bad character, he just makes poor choices and tries his hardest to make up for it afterwards. Uncle Arthur (who you don't know is the uncle for a good while- at first I thought he was just a mean-spirited neighbor) becomes tragic when you seem him grieve for his son that he forced to enlist. The Germans are represented by Fredrich who is a kind man intent on protecting not only Joey and Topthorn but also Emilie and her mother at all costs, including his life. Every single character except for Joey and Albert is flawed but attempts to be the best they can.
-All the animals were played by people. The horses had two people inside and one person at the head. There were birds, both sparrows and crows flown around on long poles and the actors made the sounds themselves. The more hysterical one was the goose that ran free on the Narragot farm- it kept trying to get inside the house and during curtain call, it came out on its own and took its own bow. There were also times when just the horses were on the stage by themselves and their movements were so fluid, so choreographed, so impactful. Again, it was hard to believe that these weren't real horses. Towards the end, even though physically they hadn't changed, you felt like they were exhausted, like they were thin and nearly starved, almost dead. That's magic right there.
-The picture below might give you a slightly better idea of what that upper screen looked like. It's a great example of the hand drawn effects that seem like preliminary sketches but I couldn't imagine anything more perfect.
I thought this was a fascinating little clip. Plus the guy who plays the goose. Yes! And you get to see a lot of the horses and the birds close-up. At 4:04, you see the ending set, which is the entire cast in a large semi-circle around Joey and Albert and you can't hear it, but they're singing acapella and if that doesn't move you, then you clearly are the Tin-Man with no heart.
Again, words really cannot express the magnitude of these two shows. Go see them if you can. Truly, you will not regret it.
