Melissa Anne Murphy as Mina and Charles Hubbell as Count Dracula. Photo by Elise Rosen.
Dracula burns with sexuality: the oily count, dressed in smooth leather and crisp shirts, his creepy yet compelling accent, so obsequiously polite. And of course his gleamingly sharp teeth as he wraps the swooning maidens in his cape and drinks, ever so slowly, their sweet warm blood. Ooh.
This erotic charge is the main reason Bram Stoker‘s 1897 Dracula has stayed with us. There have been countless adaptations, for the screen both small and large (including a major production by Francis Coppola) and for the stage (I’ve seen two at Red Eye alone). There have been spoofs (Polanski’s overlooked Fearless Vampire Killers) and of course so many variations (Anne Rice, the Twilight novels) that they form a virtual sub-genre of horror.
Despite this wealth of material, playwright/director John Heimbuch has decided that we require yet another adaptation and thus Walking Shadow Theatre Company (of which Heimbuch is co-artistic director) offers up Drakul (Walking Shadow performing at Red Eye Theater, 15 West 14th St., Minneapolis, through Feb 26). Billed as a play “inspired by” the Stoker original, Heimbuch’s version in fact follows the book closely, though Heimbuch does develop a sub-plot whereby the novel Dracula is fact masquerading as fiction (and Bram Stoker has sold his name to the enterprise). All the usual Draculian suspects are in evidence: the spirited Lucy, the mad Renfield, the phlegmatic Professor van Helsing. Not much is new.
The overwhelming problem is length: Drakul clocks in at a solid 3 hours and the moments of pleasure – the blood-drinking, the seductive count in his chilly castle, Lucy’s sexual frenzy – get lost in endless exposition and the fitfully developed recriminations about the authorship of the book. I found the play cinematic to a fault. Set pieces are carried in, a short scene is played, and then the pieces are schlepped out – again and again. Because of this episodic structure, the play lacks a compelling build.
Which is not say that there isn’t pleasure to be had; there is, and it’s largely due to the acting, which is first rate (Walking Shadow always provides excellent value in this area). As Dracula, Charles Hubbell is terrific, lean and physically powerful. He wears the leather brilliantly and plays the count with panther-like eroticism. Marvelous. Similarly good is Joanna Harmon as Lucy: fetching and giggly, she effectively turns into a blood-dripping vampire – if only the play could better capitalize on this. As Mina, Melissa Anne Murphy grew on me. Initially, Mina wants nothing more than a calm marriage and a crocheting future, but as her husband Jonathon becomes enmeshed in the Dracula drama, Mina rises to the challenge, and Murphy plays this with artful understatement. Wade Vaughn gives us a nifty angular Dr. Seward.  Indeed, everyone is quite good.
Mr. Heimbuch is a writer of considerable skill, but Drakul, I believe, would be better as a screenplay.
For more info about John Olive, please check out his website.