Zahra Newman is Dracula. Indeed, Zahra Newman is everyone in Dracula. The hugely talented actor portrays all 23 characters that appear in Sydney Theatre Company’s epic staging of Bram Stoker’s classic horror novel. It is, of course, the third and final chapter in outgoing artistic director Kip Williams’ gothic literature adaptations, following on from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
As in both those productions, Dracula has been interpreted through the lens of the writer-director’s groundbreaking cine-theatre technique, which employs live and pre-recorded video – plus, good old-fashioned smoke and mirrors – to enable one actor to play multiple parts on stage, simultaneously.
That level of queer subversion has been at play across the entire trilogy, and that's...alive in this adaptation of Dracula
It’d just be a good party trick if it wasn’t so profoundly effective, evoking contemplation on the notion of identity, conflicted or otherwise, that connects all the entries in his gothic trilogy. Here, it enables Newman to play the Count (depicted here with a shock of red hair), his virginal victim Lucy Westenra, scholarly vampire hunter Abraham van Helsing, madman Renfield, and more. Identities and genders become blurred and refracted.
“One of the thematics of the trilogy has been an interrogation of an individual's relationship to their own identity,” Williams notes. “And gender and sexuality are profound parts of any human's expression of identity.”
Newman, much like her predecessors (Eryn Jean Norvill’s legendary turn in Dorian Gray comes to mind) is tasked with embodying all those varying selves.Williams observes that he’s worked with her for over a decade, including STC’s recent production of Shakespearean tragedy Julius Caesar, and says of his casting choices: “In order to make any of these works, of the six actors I've worked with across this trilogy, you need a rare and unpredictable constellation of gifts and powers, and Zahra has all of those in buckets. Plus, she's got an amazing dramaturgical mind. Plus, she's a lot of fun and we laugh a lot. You need to sort of be in the trenches together, being able to have fun at the same time.”
Perhaps that’s because working on one of these things involves a journey to a dark place – the supernaturally haunted and psychologically tormented milieu of 19th century gothic literature. It’s not all gloom though, the show is seasoned with a fun sense of camp humour. Williams says there are strong parallels between the age of the buttoned-up, repressed Victorians and our own, rather confused, moment in time.
“I think it’s why the trilogy has resonated with audiences. There is a connection between the Victorian period being a culture on the edge of modernity and asking questions about who it's going to be,” he muses. “And the time we're living in now, where a number of the questions and changes and values that were being experimented with then have come to a kind of climax or apotheosis.”
Perhaps that’s why there seems to have been a massive swell of interest in Dracula lately. Not just vampires – they’re a perennial – but the Count himself, who features in or influences a good half dozen recent and upcoming movies, including Renfield, The Invitation, and David Eggers’ upcoming remake of Nosferatu. (F.W. Murnau’s original 1922 black and white film is famously an unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel – and we’re lucky it still exists, thanks to a tiny handful of prints escaping court-ordered destruction to appease Stoker’s widow, Florence, after studio Prana Film failed to secure the rights before making the film.)
Dracula has been adapted, reinterpreted, queered, embraced, and occasionally defanged – the book and the character are ubiquitous. It’s the kind of ubiquity where audiences tend to have a fair handle on the characters and the plot, even if they’ve never read the book or seen the movie. So, even though Dracula is a pinnacle gothic text – and certainly a rung or two above Dorian Gray and Jekyll and Hyde in popularity, if not quality – is that broad familiarity a help or a hindrance?
“I mean, I think part of the appeal of making it is because it is much-adapted,” says Williams. “And so, there's a relationship to the source material that an audience has, which is different from the last two of these adaptations.”
As for his preferred adaptations of Dracula, and which ones may have influenced the STC production, Williams says he avoided visiting or revisiting any while writing and creating the play. But he adds that the production team, including designer Marg Horwell and lighting designer Nick Schlieper, have looked at numerous iterations of the story and drawn their inspirations. (Without spoiling some fun details, we’ll just say some are more obvious than others.)
“Because the text is so known, there's an opportunity to play with it by both referencing it and subverting it,” Williams continues. “That level of queer subversion has been at play across the entire trilogy, and that's definitely something that's alive in this adaptation of Dracula.”
Indeed, this adaptation – already recontextualised, refracted and playfully camp – pushes into territory suggested but never explored by the original text, which staunchly framed the vampiric count. But Williams observes that it’s an attitude arguably rooted in Stoker’s own suppressed desires.
“Stoker, like his characters, writes from a place of self-denial. He attempts to posit the vampire as something that needs to be defeated, and argues that desire that exists latently within his characters should not be adhered to.”
Williams’ iteration of the tale explores the opposite interpretation – that the taboo desires awoken by the intruding vampire should be explored rather than repressed. He says: “These characters should be given free liberation, and Dracula becomes a kind of champion for that release.”
To be honest, that sounds more like Rocky Horror’s Frank N. Furter than Dracula to us (to reference another theatrical proponent of liberating gothic-camp eroticism) but it’s definitely a fascinating lens through which to shine a light on the old Count.
Editor’s note: With Williams stepping down as STC’s artistic director at the end of this year after an extraordinary eight-year tenure (he was the youngest person to ever receive the appointment, to boot) he’s keeping his cards pretty close to his chest about what’s next. However, especially with the sensational Dorian Gray poised to debut on Broadway following Sarah Snook’s Olivier Award-winning performance on the West End, we can safely bet that there’s big things in store for this legend of Sydney theatre. (Unlike ol’ mate Drac, let’s hope the yanks aren’t afraid to give themselves over to what he evokes.)
Dracula is playing a strictly limited season at Roslyn Packer Theatre, Walsh Bay, until August 4, 2024. Read our five-star review here, and grab your tickets here.
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