![]() Nick Dear's play condenses much of the action of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (entire main characters such as Henry Clerval are missing), but I think it does an admirable, at times truly chilling, job of distilling some of Shelley's major themes. In the case of Elizabeth, this additional streak of viciousness is even less creditable since, in Dear’s version of the story, she is the first person (apart from the blind old man) who ever sympathized with him.Īll in all, the rape scene spoilt the play considerably, although I would not say that Nick Dear’s interpretation of the Frankenstein tale is completely without its merits. Somehow the Creature’s going to such extremes of viciousness is out of character in that however infuriated he might be after Frankenstein’s second treason, his hatred is always directed against his creator and not against the people in his creator’s entourage. ![]() The original Creature then vows to have his revenge – but this would have lain in killing Elizabeth and not in raping her before. Then, however, when the scientist notices that the Creature is apparently more capable of genuine affection than he himself is, he destroys the female Creature. Let’s take one step back and consider: The Creature wanted Frankenstein to give him a female companion, and Frankenstein at first complies with this request – not least because he senses a chance of even excelling his first creation. This is a detail which cooled off my enthusiasm about this new approach to the old Frankenstein tale considerably because I think that it does not really serve the purpose of the story and may – here I am just trying to make an educated guess – have found its way into the plot mainly on the grounds of it being dramatic and gross. ![]() There is yet another difference between the play and the novel, and this is the scene in which the Creature rapes Elizabeth. At least, I’d like to think it that way since after all, we can witness both the positive and negative effects of technological and scientific development. However, Victor Frankenstein is a vain, power-hungry and heartless man – probably, and that is the second difference, much more so than in Mary Shelley’s novel, and maybe there’s the major message of the play: Science as such is neither good nor bad, but we should not forget that it lies in the hands of flawed human beings, which means that its results can both prove harmful and beneficial. Paradoxically, the Creature itself, although ugly and ungainly, proves capable of love and is driven by a need for company and affection – and had not Victor Frankenstein abandoned him to a world in which he would be made to suffer for his terrifying outward appearance, but had he shown a true Creator’s interest in his Creature, all might have ended differently. It even seems as though it were not his keen interest in science that keeps Frankenstein aloof from Elizabeth and his family but, rather the other way around, his inability to show any real emotion that makes him take refuge to science. ![]() In the course of the play, it becomes more and more obvious that the young scientist is a deeply flawed man – unable to feel real love for his fiancée Elizabeth, whom he shuns, and haunted by the burning ambition to discover the secret of life and prove himself a genius. But someone's got to do it.It’s been a long time since I last read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and so I do feel doubtful about comparing her novel with Nick Dear’s adaptation for the stage, although my dim recollections of that 1818 masterpiece prompt me that there are some differences that should be mentioned.įor a start, whereas Mary Shelley tells the story mainly from the perspective of Victor Frankenstein (as reported by the captain of the ship which saves Frankenstein), Nick Dear gives us the point of view of the Monster from the very start, which makes us more ready to sympathize with the Creature – at least for the first part of the play – and to look askance at Frankenstein himself. What kind of experiments, I wonder? So what was it you were saying about rich old ladies and their daughters? Something to do with illegal experiments. Ran into trouble with the authorities a few years back. They say, in his youth, he could break into heaven and lecture God on science. And then relieve their very real and beautiful daughters. Still, I'll have a good time, get my degree if I can stop failing anatomy, and settle down to relieve rich old ladies of imaginary ailments. I'm told that has something to do with healing the sick, which is a pity really, because I find sick people rather revolting. You can tell because he goes around looking at things with his mouth open. Henry Clerval, by the way and I'm completely crazy. In fact that's just the sort of thing I'd expect a perfectly rational person to say to a complete stranger. It's just that Krempe doesn't approve of public humiliation.
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