Dracula

Dracula

Writer: adapted by Liz Lochead, based on Bram Stoker’s classical novel.

Director: David Hutchinson

Theatre: Greenwich Playhouse

Dates: 9^th November-5^th December

The myth of vampires and the beliefs of bloodsucking demons in different cultures date back into prehistoric times. The most famous vampire story is of course that one of Dracula. It was written more than hundred years ago and it has influenced lots of books, plays and films over the years and still does. Although they usually escape from the primary plot of the story they borrow basic elements.  Liz Lochead’s play named Dracula is an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classical novel and is true to the original story. Just like Stoker’s novel, in Lochead’s play, young solicitor Jonnathan Harker, visits Count Dracula’s castle for a routine deal to find himself imprisoned. In his effort to escape he is attacked by three female vampires, the Brides of Dracula and is saved by Count Dracula who wants to keep him alive to for legal advice and information about England and London. Harker manages to escape and Dracula sets off to find Mina, Haker’s fiancée, and her sister Lucy. Dracula attacks Lucy and she begins to waste away, so Dr. Seward, who had proposed to her, asks help from Van Helsing who immediately understands the cause of her illness. After Lucy’s death the three men begin to find Count Dracula before he attacks his next victim, Mina.

Like Bram Stoker’s book, Dracula play had an extraordinary feeling of seduction, eroticism and sexuality. The biting on the neck and the bloodstained dress symbolizes the loss of innocence and virginity of a woman and the passionate attraction of women towards Count Dracula symbolize the sexual liberation of women that wasn’t accepted in the Victorian times that the story is taking place. Director David Hutchinson points out this side of the tale with the five female characters, Mina, Lucy and the three Brides of Dracula, acting in passionate movements and their display of unbridled attraction. On one scene when Mina is attacked by Dracula she lays on the floor with her legs embracing Dracula’s waist and her body moving in sexual way whilst when the three men, Van Helsing, Harker and Seward enter to kill Dracula and save her, Harker is barely able to hold her and stop her from going back to Dracula. Eroticism is also displayed when each time Dracula attacked Lucy or Mina, red rose petals poured out their necks.

The setting was very intelligently set, as there was a table and two chairs used when needed and hidden behind two large white curtains when not.  The language and costumes were Victorian style and this made the feeling of time and place very clear to the audience. The characters were very well explored, as well as each ones passions and desires.  It is a very enjoyable play, although based on the classic tale, delivered in a fresh tone of eroticism and suspense.