A danger lurks in the shadows. Is it a ghost? Is it a demon? Is it the unbearable weight of comparison? Much more threatening than all of that, it’s history’s most prolific vampire – Count Dracula. Now new and improved, with a shock of bright red hair. Sydney Theatre Company’s outgoing Artistic Director Kip Williams sinks his teeth into Bram Stoker’s much-adapted 1897 novel for the eagerly anticipated final chapter of his game-changing gothic cine-theatre trilogy. The story of Dracula has never been told like this before – with just one performer, the award-winning Zahra Newman, portraying all of the characters in the ambitious mash-up of live theatre and film that has become Williams’ signature.
This production is fundamentally spectacular, and every bit deserving of the rapturous standing ovation it was met with on opening night. But how does Dracula compare to its predecessors, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde, those other gothic tales that Williams reinvented for modern audiences? There’s a lot riding on Dracula’s bat-winged shoulders – especially with the sensational Dorian Gray poised to debut on Broadway following Sarah Snook’s Olivier Award-winning performance on the West End (not that local audiences will ever be able to imagine anyone owning it like the incredible Eryn Jean Norvill).
Photograph: STC/Daniel Boud
The show begins in a very stripped-back style – it’s almost alarmingly bare, in fact – with Newman walking onto the stage in trousers and a modern black tank top, and laying down on the floor amidst a maze of stage markings laid with fluoro tape, as a camera descends from above. A small army of camera operators and stagehands soon join the fray (it takes a village!). Considering the spectacle of the chapters that came before Dracula, which have been hailed as “a reinvention of theatre”, the minimalism might make you nervous.
But as the production evolves, we are soon put at ease – Marg Howell’s increasingly elaborate costumes, wigs and sets come into play, alongside increasingly bewildering technical advancements championed by Craig Wilkinson’s arresting video design. The introduction of a rotating white circular room is rather effective, able to appear as both a glowing white void and also a padded cell. A revolving light, similar to that of a watchtower or a lighthouse, later echoes the revolve of the white room (which is also effective, if the beam of light doesn’t happen to strike you directly in the eyeballs).
The beating heart that pumps the necessary jolt of hot, passionate lifeblood into the whole affair is Zahra Newman’s masterclass of a performance. Make the pilgrimage to Roslyn Packer Theatre on a stormy night, and you will step inside (freely and of your own will, naturally) to discover that Newman has dusted off the silverware and dished up a veritable feast with all the trimmings – from the bumbling naivety of Jonathan Harker (who is a solicitor, but is first and foremost, a doddering Englishman abroad); to Harker’s fiancé Mina, the intelligent and sweetly concerned ingénue; the innocence and vivaciousness of Mina’s best friend Lucy, who is the personification of blonde ringlets; to the swagger of Quincey Morris, a plain-speaking Texan man; the sage bravado of the elderly Professor Van Helsing – and ultimately, the threatening allure and foreboding charisma of Count Dracula himself. (Dig in, take a bite. You know you want to.)
The beating heart...of the whole affair is Zahra Newman’s masterclass of a performance.
Acting for the screen is an entirely different beast to performing live on stage, and here the actor is tasked with mastering both. Newman (whose recent credits include Fences, Julius Caesar and Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill) is a powerhouse – her grounding presence is a reassuring anchor to grab hold of amongst the whirling storm of high-tech tricks and spine-tingling thematic tension. As Newman slips into the skin of each character, her features seamlessly contort, crease, or soften – it’s as if her face is made of soft clay, able to be reset with each transition – as meanwhile, a totally new set of inflections inhabit her vocal tones.
The horror genre has long been a conduit for forcing us to not only face uncomfortable truths, but to feel them viscerally – from deep in our emotional core through to the tiny hairs that are called to attention on the backs of our necks. Stoker’s text is dripping with social subtext; this monster tale was built on an undercurrent of commentary about fear of the unknown and persistent taboos about sexuality and desire. What you might not expect, is that this bloodsoaked extravaganza is actually funnier than you might have expected. Williams’ Dracula is shamelessly, unflinchingly camp – and for what it lacks in bloodcurdling frights, this style is a good bedfellow for the story’s overtly queer undertones.
At first, the jarring sight of Drac’s plasticy-red wig is somewhat distracting (and some of the other wigs in the procession of lace-fronts bear similar artificial qualities). But, allow yourself to acclimatise (to accept the Ronald-McDonald-shade-of-red wig) and it all falls into place. This show is “very much a play” (in the same way that some movies are also “very much a play”) and the acting gets increasingly more flamboyant as the wigs get more ridiculous. At times, Dracula gnashes his pointed teeth and lets out a laugh in a Transylvanian accent so corny that if you closed your eyes, you could imagine that The Count from Sesame Street is up on stage. But he wouldn’t be entirely out of place, because next thing you know, a line-up of vampires ripped straight from the pop-cultural imagination appears on the large screen – including the bald head, long spindly figures and deformed ears of Nosferatu (cinema’s OG vampire, who is no doubt featured as a nod to the fact that the film was inarguably a rip-off of Dracula). The generations of undead Counts are all portrayed by Newman, of course.
Photograph: STC/Daniel Boud
Despite the entertaining interventions, the action does start to lose steam through a stretch in the middle, even verging dangerously close to tedious. With the play running for two hours straight with no intermission for reprieve, it does raise the question of whether Stoker’s novel could have been adapted a little more ruthlessly – perhaps even eliminating some of the more unnecessary seeming secondary characters. In theory, the original novel – with its varying protagonists and perspectives relayed through letters, diary entries and newspaper articles – is perfect fodder for Williams’ style of theatre-making. But comparatively (if we are to go that way) The Picture of Dorian Gray is a better fit, never losing its grip on the audience’s attention – and despite all of the bright florals, Oscar Wilde’s foreboding tale of mortality is ultimately more terrifying. This show (and Newman’s spectacular marathon performance) deserves to be appreciated for its own bloody brilliance – but as the final chapter in such an acclaimed trilogy, it is perhaps a little too anaemic.
There is an undeniable touch of genius here, though. While each character is distinct, they eventually begin to blur into one another. You may realise that a line from one character is delivered in another character’s wig and glasses, but that it’s not a mistake or a case of not having time to change costumes – and rather, a calculated directorial choice. As each human character begins to overlap and blend, Dracula’s wicked sensibilities come into focus, perhaps implying that these base desires exist at the root of us all. You might start to question, is the Count actually the root of all evil? Is he a threat to be eliminated? A charismatic cult leader with only nefarious intentions? Or does he merely represent the unfamiliar things that society treats with unwarranted suspicion – a person from a foreign land with foreign customs, or someone with unconventional desires and relationships who is unashamed of their queerness? Or, is Dracula an ancient predator, forced to reckon with the fact that power and influence he once wielded has little currency in a modern world? Is he all of the above? One thing is for certain – there’s a little Dracula in all of us, if only a drop.
“Come freely, go safely, and leave something of the happiness you bring.”
Dracula is playing a strictly limited season at Roslyn Packer Theatre, Walsh Bay, until August 4, 2024. Grab your tickets here.
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