Benedict Cumberbatch as Frankenstein’s creature in the National Theatre’s 2011 production.

Close-up of Benedict Cumberbatch as the creature of Dr. Frankenstein in 2011.

Last week saw the third encore cinema screening of the amazing 2011 Royal National Theatre production of “Frankenstein,” starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller (directed by Danny Boyle). Cumberbatch and Miller, each a star/incarnation of a version of Sherlock Holmes, alternate nights in the roles of Dr. Frankenstein and his creature. My partner Elliot and I saw the October 31 screening (at Symphony Space in New York); we saw Benedict as the monster — AMAZING! Having been warned by a friend that this production “is neither the book nor the Boris Karloff movie,” we were ready for a new interpretation of the Mary Shelley classic but this far surpassed any hopes or expectations we might have had.

This version includes the blind recluse, the dead child in the water, and the tortured hunt through the Arctic but the creature that Frankenstein creates is both more organic and his environment more a wasteland of the Industrial Revolution than ever before. As the creature learns to control his body, to speak, and to read he struggles to become human but realizes at last that the only way to become truly human in a way that the world at large will recognize is to embrace his own worst, most vile instincts.

Many writers try to draw parallels between Frankenstein’s creature and the Golem said to have been made by Rabbi Judah ben Lowe in Prague but the two are at radical odds with each other: one can speak, the other not but the one who can speak remains nameless while the speech-deprived golem is given the dignity of a name and a valued place in the rabbi’s household.