Another One Bites the Dust - Dracula

As a disclaimer, I was originally slated to write and direct "Dracula" for LCP - I wanted to like this show, because I respect Kerry Waters and I know how hard she worked on the play - particularly at the last minute - however she succumbed to a crucial problem that people have with this show as a community theatre piece; being TOO faithful to Stoker's book.

For those of you who are not familiar with Stoker's book, it's written as letters and journals; it's not actually a straight narrative. The story needed to be adapted and severely cut so that the action found in the letters was extracted and put into the storyline; Ms. Waters didn't seem to be able to decide what was important to focus on and what wasn't. Unfortunately the night I saw it the sound effects were rather off their mark, and so the carriage ride she begins her story with was confusing as the clippety-clop of horses interrupted dialogue on stage. I recognize that it is the first time that Ms. Waters has written a script and directed for LCP, and I think it's a good thing for community theatre to give people the opportunity to try original pieces - however three hours of lights up, lights down, lights up, lights down and very little connective dialogue made for a confusing and rather dull show.

The allure of Dracula is fear itself in the form of seduction; there was nothing sexy, seducing or scary about this production. We are often titillated by what we fear the most - hence why Dracula is often associated with our own excesses and vices...wanting to indulge in what we know to be either profane or sinful, and suffering the consequences for pleasure goes hand-in-hand with this plotline. What is frightening isn't the obvious; what is frightening is often the beautiful, the lie that sounds completely sane and tempts us to do what we intuitively know we shouldn't, and to be drawn towards the darker parts of ourselves where we aren't sure we are necessarily in control. Renfield's insanity should be frightening because he makes more sense than anyone on stage at certain points in the show, as it is written in the book - he has a more intimate understanding of their reality except for Van Helsing and Dracula themselves.

Another profound disappointment was the nonexistent confrontation between Van Helsing and Dracula. Harker sleeps through most of the fights, Dracula's vixens mostly fight for him and enter far too soon on their cues to be a surprise to the audience, and Dracula himself dies not with a bang, but a whimper.

There is so much meat to explore here; the nature of being, of good and evil, of sacrifice, friendship, love and endurance...would you give your soul to save your lover? How can you curse the vampire for being true to his nature? He hunts, just as humans hunt deer - why is he wrong? Or why is Van Helsing's quest to annhiliate Dracula heroic - and is it, ultimately?

For Stoker, love is the highest of all virtues and because Dracula does not have a heart that can beat of it's own will, he must steal life from the blood of others; he is an abomination, a being cursed by God to feast upon men but never experience for himself his own blood to run hot with passion and cold with fear. This is why Van Helsing pities his enemy as much as he desires to destroy him - only the heartless can kill without remorse or regret...

And it's regretful I can't give a better review for all of the hard work Ms. Waters put into her show; I give her great admiration for finishing her script and getting it on stage - it's only through doing that you actually learn. I realize I am biased, but the show was nearly three hours long, and the original movie from 1931 ran about 76 minutes. The story is so familiar that it doesn't need to ponderously extrapolate the meaningless details of the book - audiences want action for this kind of show, and unfortunately there isn't much action happening except for the lighting guy.