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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/7b872b3098a925ad56ba94c9f34c4f0a_film_books_benedict_cumberbatch.jpg]]
2 [[caption-width-right:350:"Mom said it's my turn to be Victor Frankenstein!"]]
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4A 2011 play by Nick Dear and directed by Creator/DannyBoyle. It stars Creator/BenedictCumberbatch and Creator/JonnyLeeMiller, alternating night-by-night in their roles as {{Franchise/Frankenstein}} and [[FrankensteinsMonster the Creature]]. Scored with dark electronic ambient by the band Music/{{Underworld|Band}}.
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6Forget your old Frankenstein, starting with the MadScientist mixing up bubbling potions on a midnight dreary, and using a lightning strike to animate a groaning, inarticulate hulk. No. When the stage lights up, there is a womb-like structure suspended far to one side... and the audience glimpses a man moving within it. The womb bursts open, and a monstrous-looking man staggers out -- onto to fall onto the floor, wailing and weeping like a helpless newborn. The show continues to follow this nameless Creature's development and exploration of the world... sensations as delightful as rainfall and as hateful as fear, the potential of other people, and his own capacities for knowledge, wonder, and destruction. Eventually, the play is shaped by his quest to find the man who made him, and ask one driving question: Why did he make the Creature, only to abandon him? ''Why?''
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8!!This stage production has the examples of:
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10* AdaptationDistillation: The play does away with the FramingDevice with Captain Walton from Mary Shelley's {{Literature/Frankenstein}} and focuses on the relationship between Victor and the Creature. It also keeps Victor's age correct, and like the novel, leaves how he brought the Creature to life vague. It's probably the truest adaptation of Shelley's novel. The major things omitted besides Walton, are Victor's time at the University and Justine the maid who ends framed and killed for William's death.
11* AdaptationalUgliness: The Creature here is bald and covered in livid sutures.
12* AdaptationalVillainy: Perhaps because this version is told primarily from the Creature's point of view, Victor is more of a jerk than he was in the novel, and most of his redeeming qualities are left out.
13** The Creature here also commits two heinous deeds which were not in the novel: [[spoiler: burning the cottage with the innocent De Lacey and his family inside after the latter rejected him, and raping Elizabeth]].
14* AdaptedOut: Captain Robert Walton is nowhere to be found. Nor are Professors Waldman and Kempe, or Victor's friend Henry Clerval, or the maid Justine,
15* AltarTheSpeed: After breaking his promise and hearing the Creature's subsequent threats, Frankenstein is suddenly very, very keen to marry Elizabeth as soon as possible. It doesn't help.
16* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: InvokedTrope. Since Cumberbatch and Miller swap roles each night, Frankenstein and the Creature's characters depend on who's playing who. Cumberbatch's Victor is aloof and arrogant, while his Creature is prone to being a LargeHam. Miller's Victor is much more of a manic MadScientist and his Creature is much more down to earth.
17** Miller drew inspiration for his Creature from his own children, while Cumberbatch looked at stroke victims.
18* AmbiguousEnding: In the novel Victor is dead and the Creature intends to commit suicide imminently. In this version, at the ending Victor is near death, but the Creature is leading him on further towards the Pole, and may still live...
19* AnalogyBackfire: Henry points out Victor's self-applied "Modern Prometheus" moniker isn't that impressive considering the original Prometheus suffered AFateWorseThanDeath for his experiments.
20* AntagonistInMourning: Depends on who you think the antagonist is...
21* ArtificialHuman: This aspect of the Creature is emphasised more than its undead nature, as it is indeed born from an artificual womb of sorts.
22* BedmateReveal: Guaranteed to make the audience gasp aloud, and definitely not PlayedForLaughs.
23* {{Bowdlerise}}: When streamed on Youtube during the Covid-19 crisis, the scene where the Creature [[spoiler: rapes and murders Elizabeth]] was removed entirely.
24* CassandraTruth: The Creature keeps telling De Lacey that Felix and Agatha would drive him away because of his deformities if they ever saw. De Lacey insists they are good people who would overlook that. De Lacey learns the truth the hard way.
25* ChewingTheScenery: Cumberbatch's Creature delivers the "This is your universe, Frankenstein" in a very over the top way, enunciating every syllable in the scientists name. Miller's delivery of the same line is more pointed and subdued.
26* ColorblindCasting: Victor's father and Elizabeth are both played by black actors. Victor's little brother, William, is played by two young boys in different performances, one of whom is black and the other is white.
27* CoupDeGrace: Poor Elisabeth.
28* CradlingYourKill: When the Creature [[spoiler: thinks Frankenstein is dead, finally run down by his long, long chase]].
29* DeathByAdaptation: The De Lacey family. The Creature sets their hut on fire as vengeance for casting him out (even the old man).
30* DeathEqualsEmotion: In the Arctic, a dying Frankenstein admits that he threw away every chance he had for love.
31* DeathIsSuchAnOddThing: "Master, what is it like to die? Can I die? How long does death last?"
32* DefiantToTheEnd: Frankenstein.
33* DisabledInTheAdaptation: The Creature is far more physically awkward and unrefined than in the novel, though still capable of great strength and feats. In both interpretations it talks and moves similarly to a stroke victim relearning how to do so, although this is emphasised more in Cumberbatch's Creature.[[note]]Cumberbatch studied stroke patients and used their movement as his inspiration for the Creature's movement[[/note]]
34* DontLookAtMe: The Creature to William, knowing how people react to him.
35* DramaticThunder: It wouldn't be ''Frankenstein'' without it.
36* DueToTheDead: M. Frankenstein is horrified that Frankenstein has been mountain climbing and is now leaving the country before his brother can even be buried.
37* EroticDream: The Creature dreams of a female like himself.
38--> '''De Lacey''': It was a good dream, then?
39--> '''The Creature''': It was pleasing, yes.
40* EvilIsDeathlyCold: Frankenstein finds the Creature living on the glaciers, the only place he isn't hounded from; later, they both journy to the Arctic Circle.
41* ExposedToTheElements: The Creature wears an open shirt and waistcoat, ragged trousers and no shoes in the Arctic, while Frankenstein wears a fur-lined seal-skin suit with hood. gloves and boots.
42* {{Expy}}: Cumberbatch's Victor feels like a Regency era ''{{Series/Sherlock}}''.
43* FireIsRed: Lighting to indicate the burning building.
44* FirstSnow: The Creature has a childlike delight in the first snowfall he experiences, and keeps sneaking away from his lessons with de Lacey to play in it.
45* ForDoomTheBellTolls: There was a giant bell above the stalls for this effect.
46* ForScience: Frankenstein's justification to the Creature.
47* GetOut: Frankenstein to the servant.
48* GoneHorriblyWrong: How Frankenstein describes his experiment to Elizabeth.
49* GraveRobbing: How Frankenstein gets the material to make the female Creature. Even the Creature is disgusted.
50* HeartbeatSoundtrack: Beginning and ending the play.
51* IAmWhatIAm: The Creature, in a downright heartbreaking scene.
52--> I am different. I have tried to be the same, but I am different.
53* IComeInPeace: Subverted, rather horribly, when the Creature meets Elizabeth.
54* ILied: The Creature to Elisabeth.
55* ItsPersonal: Invoked by the Creature, as he desperately wants to talk to Frankenstein and realises that the only way to draw him out is to [[spoiler: kill his brother William]].
56--> If I had killed half of Ingolstadt, would you have come?
57* ItWasADarkAndStormyNight: Especially on the night the Creature comes to claim the female Frankenstein has promised.
58* IWarnedYou: The Creature to Frankenstein. He certainly did.
59* JerkassHasAPoint: Though Frankenstein taunts the Creature cruelly regarding the female Creature, he makes several valid points -- there's no way to ''force'' her to love the Creature, she might hate him, or turn out depraved, and she has no reason to honor a promise made on her behalf before she was created.
60* KillTheCutie: [[spoiler: Cute little William Frankenstein. Elizabeth hits this in the penultimate scene, and gets it even worse, as she has been acting as what passes for Victor's conscience.]]
61* LikeFatherLikeSon: The Creature tells Elizabeth that this is why he must behave the way he does.
62* MadScientist: Victor, but particularly evident in Miller's portrayal, compared with the aloof arrogance in Cumberbatch's.
63* MaleFrontalNudity: The Creature is born naked and stays that way for about 20 minutes as he learns to control his own body. And he's played by Creator/BenedictCumberbatch and Creator/JonnyLeeMiller. IllBeInMyBunk. (The filmed releases have the Creature emerging in a loincloth that is his exact skin tone.)
64* MelancholyMoon: The Creature describes the moon as solitary and sad, like himself.
65* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: De Lacey, after his children meet the Creature -- not just because of the fear and shock inflicted on his family, but because he knows he has wrecked the Creature's trust in human goodness.
66* NoNameGiven: The Creature ruefully notes that Victor never gave him that luxury.
67* OneWordTitle: Also a ProtagonistTitle.
68* RevengeBeforeReason: For the sake of revenge, the Creature will kill even the few people who have shown him kindness.
69* ParentalAbandonment: The source of the Creature's problems. Benedict Cumberbatch has told interviewers that the play is about bad parenting.
70* ParentalSubstitute: De Lacey.
71* PleaseWakeUp: The Creature to Frankenstein, in one of the most moving scenes.
72* PointOfView: The original novel was told through Victor's eyes. Here the main focus is on the Creature; he is the first character we see and besides the brief scuffle in the lab, Victor doesn't really come into focus until the Creature makes his way to Geneva
73* PostRapeTaunt: "Now I am a man!"
74* ProtagonistTitle: Also a OneWordTitle.
75* RevengeByProxy: Can't get at your creator? Well, he has a sweet and innocent fiancee...
76* RousseauWasRight: The Creature is born innocent, but learns the ways of men.
77--> '''The Creature''': And finally...[[WhamLine I learned how to lie]].
78* SecurityCling: Elizabeth tries to persuade Frankenstein to stay - or at least take her on his trip to Scotland - with this.
79* SparedByTheAdaptation: Well, we don't ''see'' M. Frankenstein dying of a broken heart...
80* TalkingToTheDead: Frankenstein dreams a conversation with his dead brother.
81* TraumaCongaLine: The whole play, for both Frankenstein and the Creature.
82* WhereDidWeGoWrong: M. Frankenstein thinks his son has gone mad. He may be right.
83* WoundThatWillNotHeal: The Creature emerges from his womb covered in stitches and gashes, and sutures that hold his arms to his shoulders. These wounds never heal over the course of the play -- this is clearly deliberate, given that Frankenstein, later in the play, gleefully observes "The sutures have held!" -- not healed, but held.
84* YouCanTalk: Frankenstein to his Creature.
85--> '''The Creature''': Yes, Frankenstein, "it" speaks.
86* YouMonster: Frankenstein to the Creature. Actually, everyone to the Creature.
87* YouTaughtMeThat: The Creature tell both Elizabeth and Frankenstein that he has become a monster because Frankenstein abandoned, abused and deceived him.
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