(Untitled)
So on Tuesday theoret and I went on an epic voyage to London to see Frankenstein at the National Theatre. We had Jonny Lee Miller as the Creature and Benedict Cumberbatch as Victor Frankenstein (they swap roles alternately, if you didn't already know) and it was SO FREAKING GOOD.
( Frankenstein! In which Tree has not been to the theatre in a very long time so she gets overexcited and rambles about lighting, what. )
( Frankenstein! In which Tree has not been to the theatre in a very long time so she gets overexcited and rambles about lighting, what. )
Comments 11
Jealous, but yay that it's out there.
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I didn't write much detail about the staging play in my post, and that is because I was afraid I would just end up rambling about the set for an million years. In fact, I might have accidentally rambled about my deep and truthy love for the Olivier Stage before I even got to rambling about the set design. TREE, I LEGIT THINK I FANGIRL THAT STAGE. It is just such an excellent space and it seems to inspire gloriously creative set design! (I am now having a nostalgic fangasm over how the drum revolve was dressed as the trenches in War Horse.) ALSO THE LIGHTING! I COULD NOT EVEN BEGIN TO EXPLAIN THE LIGHTING. *___* And the Bell! No forgetting that. In conclusion: Excellent.
Re: the ending, do you think red lighting was supposed to be evocative of hell? It was only brief, but given the philosophic/religious/moral themes, I sort of thought they were using hell imagery as a metaphor for the way bad actions lead them into bad places. Second opinion?
P.S. I love what you have done with Benedictor Cumberstein's name there.
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Hahahaha I think if ever there were any stage to fangirl it would be the Olivier Stage, though. Or rather, the people who do the things they do to the Olivier Stage. In the hands of shit people, it would just seem too big and unwieldy and audiences would be all OMG STOP SPINNING SHIT, but them Olivier people are GOOD PEOPLE WHO SPIN THEIR SHIT TO OPTIMUM EFFECT.
Hummm no I don't think it was meant to be evocative of Hell. Or well, death of the author/play director and all, I didn't interpret it as said and you stick with your interpretation if it works for you! But with the heartbeat that was playing over the top, I guess I read it more as well um a return to the womb? It is hard interpreting several days old feelings that were then mostly forgotten about in favour of applause. Like the events had made their full inevitable circle to the Creature's birth at the opening only now it was like an unbirthing (MAKES WORDS UP YEAH!!)... as the Creature has created this new Victor who can barely stand and who can ( ... )
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Yeah, getting Tree to put on her textual analysis hat! *noms your interesting thoughts* I kind of missed the heartbeat at the end (I must have been too busy focusing on the visuals for my brain to go I KNOW THAT PATTERN, or something), which I guess is why my thoughts went different places. I think I am going to occupy a space of ~not having one specific interpretation~. Perhaps until I get my hands on a copy of a recording of the play and can then have a new gut reaction to base things on. (OH GOD I WANT THEM TO GIVE US THEIR CINEMA FOOTAGE SO BADLY.)
BENECTORDICT CUMBENSTATCH.
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By day I am but a mild mannered English lit student, but by night I put on my textual analysis hat and... do the same as I spend my daylight hours EXCEPT WITH A HAT ON. You almost had me worrying that I had imagined/misremembered the heartbeat, but then I reminded myself of your observational skills and I am less doubtful. Even if I did imagine the heartbeat, the red light threw me right back to the start visually so IMMA STICK WITH MY BIRTHY INTERPRETATION.
BENEVENORDICTOR FRANCUMBEIN
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The whole thing was just amazing. The lights, the music...I saw BC as the creature and he was very physical, and I would have gone back to see it the other way around but they didn't air it that way near me. I've seen interviews where Benedict and Johnny Lee talk about borrowing some of the actory things they liked from each other, and I would have loved to have seen how JLM did the very very beginning. BC carried a bit of Sherlock in him, and I think it would have suited very well to Victor.
IDK what I was expecting, for it to be slightly to above average? But when I saw the rebroadcast, I was so impressed with the trouble they went to to make it good for a viewer who couldn't get to London.
They must have had cameras everywhere, overhead ones as well, and it was so smooth they must of practiced it several times. I have my fingers crossed for a DVD!
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Ohhh I'm with you on the hope for the DVD! I would so very love to see the Cumbercreature and Jonny Lee Frankenstein, just to see how it compared - although it is now so hard for me to imagine BC doing all the naked writhing at the start xD (though I hear it was rather delicious writhing.) I want to know how much of them was direction and how much was actor's choice, dammit.
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So AS YOU MAY KNOW, I went and saw a recorded version of it where Cumberbatch was the creature and Miller was Frankenstein! PLEEEASE LET US DISCUSS THE DIFFERENCES IN THEIR PHYSICAL ACTING I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR ABOUT IT IF YOU REMEMBER ENOUGH. *chinhands* Cumberbatch did a truly amazing job at it. He lumbered, but the lumbering became quite graceful when he was running. It put me very much in mind of a large animal, like a bear, which I thought was a really interesting parallel if that's what he was going for. *_* I really want to know more of what he and Miller took their inspiration from! They played a little "interview with the actors and director" thing before the actual performance, and Miller said part of his inspiration came from his two-year-old, which I thought was both adorable and fascinating :D but I would love to hear more of their thinky thoughts about it. AND YOURS. *nudge*
The staging was FANTASTIC. Probably the best I've seen at the Olivier, actually! Welcome to Thebes ( ... )
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