Tivoli Theatre, until November 6.
Michael Scott, writer and director of this new stage adaptation of Dracula, adds come clever touches to his manipulation of the classic gothic material. He brings to light the true themes of the Victorian novel – the challenge to man's worldview in a new age of science – as well as the story's sexual resonances. He transforms the novelistic origins into clever theatrics, most notably in the proposal scene where Lucy's suitors visit her in a flashback form that is played like a play within a play. Visually, as well as structurally, he draws attention to the twinned fate of the lunatic Renfield with all the other characters who come into contact with the eponymous vampire. As an adaptation it is lucid and swift-paced. As a production, however, it is desperately confused, sitting uneasily, and occasionally ridiculously, between po-faced presentation and pure parody.
The venue, upstairs at the Tivoli Theatre, does not help in any way. The uncredited sound designer, who borrows too heavily from the score of Francis Ford Coppolla’s sumptuous 1998 film, can do little to disguise the dead acoustic of the theatre, where voices are flattened without any resonance. The incidental soundtrack of a restless audience and the accelerated pace of first-night nerves did not help in setting either tone or clarity on opening night. As a result the production suffered badly from a lack of atmosphere, despite the heavy use of dry ice, which helped to obfuscate the minimal set design by Michael McCaffery.
Instead, gothic spirit was replaced by veiled quotations from other, more contemporary vampire versions. There is plenty of teeth-gnashing and wolf-howling: the hammy trademarks of Christopher Lee's Hammer Horror Dracula. There's also plenty of the loin-girding sexual references of the recent True Blood/Twilightinterpretations too.
And that is the major flaw of Scott’s ultimately misconceived production. Faced with so many modern interpretations of the tale, it is over influenced and fails to find its own authentic voice. What remains is seriously silly rather than seriously scary. The undead will be rolling in their graves.
