That tall, skinny dude in black is back. No, not Johnny Cash. The one with the long teeth and insatiable thirst for the life force.
Count Dracula (Jeffrey James Lippold) and his frolicking female vampire trio inhabit that dingy Transylvanian castle through Feb. 24 at Coronado Playhouse, directed by James Gary Byrd.
John Mattera’s adaptation plays down the gore, changes the identity of the victim who dies and only suggests the gruesome death of the count. It also minimizes the gothic eroticism of the original.
In return, it offers original atmospheric music by local composer Eric Scot Frydler and adds the Shakespearean comic relief of two butlers and Mr. Renfield (Charley Miller), inmate in Dr. Seward’s asylum, making it a rather jollier evening than one might expect.
When Jonathan Harker (Michael Oravec) enters Castle Dracula to discuss a real estate deal, he is creeped out immediately by the count’s frightening demeanor and his insistence on putting off the business discussion until the next night, too late for Harker to catch the train back.
But of course we know why: The count has seen and become rather too familiar with a photo of Jonathan’s fiancée, Lucy (Allison Willliams), and is plotting to make her his bride. When the count announces his decision to move to London, Jonathan quips, “You can’t expect me to believe you’re moving to England lock, stock and barrel just to partake of English food!”
“Your fiancée bears a striking resemblance to woman I was to marry many years ago. She was taken from me. Now I have found her again,” the count responds ominously.
When the scene shifts to London, we meet Lucy’s parents, Martha (Allison MacDonald) and Henry Westenra (Timothy Paul Evans), and their hilariously drunken butler, Charles (Ivan Harrison, who table-hopped pre-show in a lovely black frock).
Soon the Westenras begin to wonder why Lucy looks so pale and keeps talking about the new neighbor in the abandoned Carfax mansion nearby and not about Jonathan and her upcoming wedding. They call in Dr. Seward (David O’Neal), who consults Dutch vampire authority Professor Van Helsing (Michael Gardner), and the situation goes from bad to worse.
Dracula is a gothic fantasy calling up our deepest fears and erotic longings, and playing down that fact makes Lucy seem more victimized than irresistibly drawn to her undead suitor (and it’s the latter that creates the tension and makes us examine our own dark desires).
Nonetheless, the wonderful comic stylings of Harrison and Miller, Barbara Hart’s terrific costumes and a Lippold’s genuinely scary demeanor work on a different level.
This production, slated to go on stage last fall, was postponed by a flood that closed the theater. But the producers managed to keep the capable cast together for five months, except for the remarkable Gardner (who took the role on 24-hours notice).
Dracula provides a jolly good evening in the theater.
Read Hitch's review in the San Diego Theatre Scene
Jeff Lippold as Dracula
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Allison MacDonald as Martha