Gesamtkunstwerk Frankenstein

What a beautiful, terrible work Nick Dear has written, An impactful look into what it is to be human . . . and inhuman. I have wanted to see the National Theatre's production of his Frankenstein since it was new. That was 2011. Because I like to go in like a virgin to new works, I purposefully avoided reading any reviews or listening to anyone except people saying, "You've GOT to see it."  So . . . finally . . . thirteen years after the fact, I got to sit down and watch it. Twice in fact.  Once last night, with Benedict Cumberbatch as The Monster and Jonny Lee Miller as Victor Frankenstein, then again this morning with those roles reversed. I found the events in my life between 2011 and now astonshingly relevant in experiencing Mr. Dear's take on Mrs. Shelley's novel. 

Now knowing anything of the play, I was unprepared for the difference between what I imagined it might be, and what it actually was.  Dear has given us a theatrical experience that is, by very definition, Gesamtkunstwerk. His Frankenstein calls not only for acting, but movement, choreography, dance, songs, pyrotechnics and spectacle. As to the last of these, Mark Tildesley's stage and set design is a work of wonder, allowing the multiple locations and interiors - laboratory, cabin, lakes, railroad, fields, estates, and mountains to appear and disappear seamlessly, packing its entire universe into two quickly passing hours . The audience is plunged - from the beginning -  directly into the story, as is the home audience experience through judicious camerawork. Director, Danny Boyle has strong, convincing and bold ideas about how it all should go and the results he inspires from his actors are in the "astonishing" range, with not a single weak link in his cast.

The first twenty minutes gives us the astonishing birth of The Monster, and within its first minute I found myself in tears - as I would be for most of the rest of the play. As The Monster, Benedict Cumberbatch surpassed pretty much his work in every role I'd previously seen him in - and all before uttering a word. I related to this creature, identified with him so strongly I felt as if watching of my own story taking place. As a recovering stroke and brain damage victim (god I hate that word), six years still later struggling with balance, movement, everything Cumberbatch did served as a reminder of the horrific processes of learning how to move, eat and drink on my own, the futile attempts at balance, use of limbs and digits, and most of all, to walk again. My frustration crushing, labored, pitiful movement, falls and failures all reflected in The Monster's every move.. But, so too was the dogged determination . . . the unrelenting persistence. For about eight minutes Cumberbatch overwhelms in a horrifying ballet of tortured movement, all punctuated by grunts, groans, screams and shouts.  It is devastating. 

It was not surprising to read afterward that although choreographed, Cumberbatch based his creature on his observing stroke victims in recovery.  I also learned his co-star and fellow Monster, Jonny Lee Miller based his on observing his two year old child. The differences between The Monsters keeps the story in place, but creates two very different experiences. Cumberbatch is more physical, twitching, flailing limbs,a rough elegance,  Miller's "quicker" with lots of drooling and stomping, a greater command of rapid speech . . . indeed, Miller's energy propels everything and everyone along at a quicker pace. After watching both actors in both roles, I can easily say I prefer each in the role I first saw him in. 

Mr. Miller presents Victor as a man at sea emotionally - a possibly spoiled, but not bad  fellow, no more equipped to handle his emotions than his creation, who,  when compared to, seems almost primatively. For some reason, along with the referenced Paradise Lost - I found myself thinking of Dickens, and what if his Scrooge (who I am NOT comparing to Victor) found himself facing his own trinity of ghosts, represented in one being. The interplay between both men - whichever role they are in - is like watching music.  

Dear sticks fairly close to Shelley's details (as best I remember - I need to revisit the book) taking every opportunity to open up its philosophies of the nature of man, our formations of societal structures, a hunger for (and rejection of?)  knowledge, our fears, rejection, loneliness . . . how love and kindness can be manipulated, and too easily stripped and replaced with cruelty and hate. .

Danny Doyle and company can be proud of what they have achieved here.  Everything - every single thing - about these performances convinces me Nick Dear's Frankenstein is one of the most beautiful, heartbreaking dramas created for the stage in the last 50 years. Its language, its movement and music are profound and moving. So  too, are its silences. 

Requiescat in Pace, Penny Dreadful.

As I do when finishing up any work of literature, art, film, music that has grabbed hold of me for a spell, I spend a good while ruminating on it, and so it's been today with Penny Dreadful.

As has been made too, terribly clear, ours has become a society populated more and more by people who think they know better than the creator of a story, how that story should go. It happens, most notably, in great television series such as this one.

Since the airing of its series finale, there have been dozens of online articles, op-ed pieces, in all the usual (and not so usual) online sources (Variety, Wired, etc.) by outraged fans complaining (more like whining) how they feel cheated by the (pick one) rushed, hasty piecemeal, end of the series. There have been outcries of how many loose ends there were with certain characters, how Vanessa should not have been killed off, or if she had to be, why not continue the stories of Sir Malcolm and Ethan and everyone else still alive at the tale's end.

This is the stubborn, limited rationalization by those who want a thing to go on forever at any cost to keep their favorite characters going and relevant. The show no longer really becomes about "the show" but the characters one falls in love with and/or identifies best with. I take issue with this kind of thinking.

For myself, I thought it ended wisely . . . brilliantly, even. The shows creator and principal writer, John Logan said he saw Vanessa's demise while still writing Season Two, stating at the shows heart it is about Vanessa's struggle with faith, her eternal wrestling between God and the Devil. In this sense I believe there was no choice but for Vanessa to die, but not owing to some moralistic Victorian thinking on a "woman's place," but rather as the necessary sacrifice in order for good to triumph over evil.

I'm not a religious man, but Vanessa's final words "Oh, Ethan . . . I see our Lord!" had me choked with emotion, because THIS was what she wanted from the beginning. Those who would argue otherwise, clearly haven't paid attention to what her struggle was all along, beginning with the very first image we see of her in the pilot: kneeling before a crucifix praying fervently, as one possessed.

Logan himself stated that he was not tempted to write anything beyond Vanessa's burial, and the peroration by The Creature, reciting a verse from Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality . . . " would be a betrayal of her story. I think he knew what he was doing and thank him for Vanessa was a character created to break our hearts, and hearts do not break up neatly or easily. They weren't meant to.

The complaints aren't just coming from average fans and viewers, but also renowned writers and critics who felt as though the series played a joke on all of us by not allowing us to know this was the finale, Mr. Logan's response to this was that if audiences knew going in this was the end of the season, it would have spotlit the ending. spoiling it. This kind of audience selfishness offers further proof of a public more obsessed with self-gratification than in comprehending the fact they've been offered a beautiful gift, little different different than complaining the chef didn't serve you six lobsters but only two..

There is so much to praise in this series, from Owen McPolin and company's amazing lighting design and stunning cinematography (at several points reminding me of Patrice Chéreau's Bayreuth production of "Der Ring des Nibelungen"), Abel Korzeniowsk's powerful, theatrical score, Jonathan McKinstry's atmospheric production designs, and the rest of the team. I can only applaud all of those involved in bringing this fascinating, beautiful, complicated tale to the small screen.

Requiescat in Pace, Penny Dreadful.

Penny Dreadful: Grand Guignol: Some Thoughts on the Season Finale

From the trailers and previews I sensed Showtime would very likely have an enormous hit on its hand with Penny Dreadful. I like being right.

Once I wandered into the show for its pilot/premiere, I knew there was no turning back for me. With its delicious combination of characters drawn from romantic/Gothic literature, thrown in with original characters the writers were able to put new twists and turns creating something with the pull of the familiar and the daring of the unknown. For lovers of dark, classic literature the draw was clearly irresistible.

The (too short) season ended tonight in one of the better finales any show this season has had. It answered enough questions introduced throughout the season, it revealed secrets many of us had long suspected, and more than all this, it provided an emotional arc as strongly dramatic and gripping as anything currently on television.

In under an hour Penny Dreadful showed its heart and, in more than one scene, broke mine. Chief among these was the rejection and firing of Dr. Frankenstein's Creature who, out of options, reluctantly returns to his creator. Victor, who up until this moment had nothing but contempt and rage over his creation was finally given the upper hand and the opportunity to destroy him. I feared the writers would go ahead and finish this chapter - it would have been the easier solution. Instead, Frankenstein's (very well read) monster utters the series' most profoundly moving and poignant speeches - an exegesis on heartbreak and loneliness, moving his creator - and me - to tears.

"I have nowhere else. I have no one else. Is that not the saddest of all, creator? I am again cast on your barren shores . . . What dreams I had of my mate, of another being looking into these eyes, upon this face and recoiling not. But how can that happen? For the monster is not in my face, but in my soul. I once thought that if I was like other men I would be happy, and loved. The malignance has grown you see, from the outside in, and this shattered visage merely reflects the abomination that is my heart. Oh, my creator, why did you not make me of steel and stone? Why did you allow me to feel? I would rather be the corpse I was than the man I am. Go ahead, pull the trigger. It would be a blessing."

There were other highly emotional moments as well; notably the deaths of Brona, and (finally) Mina, but the show did not skimp on the blood and violence with an exceptional vampire showdown, bloodbath, appropriately and effectively staged in the grand guignol theatre of the episode's name, Ethan's bar bashing of his two would be captors, then his big reveal as a werewolf before finishing them off. This for me was particularly satisfying as many of us who thought this from the beginning were called crazy (and worse) and now look! (Insert smug smile here).

Additionally, we witnessed a sea change in the relationship between Sir Malcolm and Miss Ivy, who in the final minutes once again turns to religion, wanting to own her guilt and change through the power of exorcism. During her conversation with the priest, he comes to understand her earnest desire for this, but asks of her the ultimate question o: "Do you really want to be normal?"

All in all, Grand Guignol was an entirely satisfying completion to the first season of a show that I look forward to revisiting for seasons to come.

Pretty Penny Dreadful

Showtime's new descent into the macabre looks to be a surefire hit for the network. Set in 1890's London, there is atmosphere aplenty as characters from some of literature's greatest hits including Dr. Frankenstein, his creature, and Dorian Gray are brought together with familiar types such as Sir Malcolm the wealthy African explorer, the mystic, Vanessa Ives, a Buffalo Bill style actor/sharpshooter, and, of course, vampires.

The pace of the show has a slow, Gothic steadiness that feels perfect allowing the viewer to absorb and watch in awe, all the visual wonders its artists and special effects teams have created. Costumes, sets lighting design . . . all lend an authenticity to a time and place of an era both breathtaking and terrifying. If you aren't taken in by the time of the descent into an underworld of supernatural gore and horror in the first half of the pilot, this is definitely not your show.


Penny Dreadful also happens to be deliciously all over the place; detective story, a horror story, supernatural mystery hybrid as well as a grand period costume drama, with a bit of Egyptology thrown in for good measure. What keeps it all from jumbling into a mess, and makes it unique, is how equal attention appears to have been paid to all of its complex elements combining into something that can make the senses reel.

Lovers of graphic gore will find plenty to enjoy here, what with the show being packed with hacked up limbs, corpses galore, blood and some unsettling surprises waiting around every corner.

The cast; Timothy Dalton, Eva Green, Josh Hartnett, Harry Treadaway, Rory Kinnear and Billie Piper are all at the top of their game creating well thought out and entirely believable, complex characters.

We've been lucky to have some remarkable period pieces on television The Tudor's, Game of Thrones, and most recently The History Channel's sensational Vikings. Based on its first two episodes, Penny Dreadful can easily join that company.