Title: Frankenstein
Author: Nick Dear
Date of First Staging: Royal National Theater, 5 February 2011
Bibliographic Reference: text published by Faber and Faber (London)
Type: play
Characters: Adaptation
Themes: ADAPTATION
Critical Summary: Nick Dear starts his play with the birth of the Creature, and much like Shelley’s Creature, hisCreature is portrayed as isolated, confused, and child-like. The audience sees the Creature take his first steps and hears his incoherent babble and grin, already grabbing at our hearts. As Frankenstein stumbles onto the stage, he is frightened by what he brought to life and denies his “mother role,” abandoning the Creature.
As the Creature wanders the streets, he is often harmed because he is “an other,” so he learns to hide from society. The Creature later comes to an old cottage inhabited by Agatha, Felix, and De Lacey, the blind father of Felix. Since De Lacey is blind to first appearances, he does not dismiss the Creature as a monster, but regards him compassionately. Up to this point, the Creature’s treatment has been undeserved violence, causing the audience to deeply sympathize with the Creature, especially after his abandonment. But as De Lacey befriends and educates the Creature, teaching him to speak, write, and read, we become hopeful.
Time passes and the Creature’s education reveals to him his position in society, one that drastically contrasts with the emperors and luxuries of a big city he reads about with De Lacey. In anguish, he discovers he is on the lower rung of the social hierarchy (and may be without any ranking altogether because of his otherness). Things take a turn when, one day, Agatha hollers a welcome when approaching the cottage while the Creature is still there. The Creature naturally panics, but De Lacey promises that Agatha and Felix will accept him. Despite his promise, Agatha and Felix are repulsed by the Creature, and the Creature realizes he entered a world that hates him. After being driven out, the Creature responds to his betrayal according to his knowledge of the Romans— with revenge—and sets the cottage on fire, killing the family, an act that shows a dangerous part of his Byronic Hero identity.
As the plot turns, the Creature kills William, Frankenstein’s brother; Frankenstein finds his body in a boat along with the pages to his own journal. As a result, Frankenstein knows to find the Creature in the Alps. Creator and Created meet and Frankenstein agrees to make him a female companion; he promises to leave humanity alone. After a dream in which the deceased William questions the outcome of making a female creation, Frankenstein wakes up and destroys the female creature. With the destruction of his companion, the Creature swears revenge.
While Frankenstein is out during his wedding night, the Creature enters and is befriended by Elizabeth before the Creature rapes and murders her, an act that shows his arrogance and misanthropy. The play concludes with the Creature exerting his dominance and arrogance over Frankenstein so that Frankenstein is driven by anger to keep chasing him into the Arctic Circle. When Frankenstein drops unconscious, the Creature begins to panic, but as Frankenstein is soon revived, they both acknowledge that they are each other’s purpose in living. Their need for another supports a shared “shadow” identity between them, especially knowing that the roles of Victor Frankenstein and the Creature are played interchangeably between Benedict Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller.
Administrative Notes: Monica Mercado, CSUF; Edited by: Molly Robinson and Melanie Yogurtian, CSUF