This is not the half-century-old dramatization by Hamilton Deane and John Balderston, in which Bram Stoker's 1897 epistolary novel was moved up to the 1920s--the version that brought fame to Bela Lugosi (whom I saw play it here in Boston near the end of his life) and is now doing the same on Broadway for Frank Langella. Nor is it the later adaptation by Crane Johnson, which I have never seen.
Instead we have a new version, set in 1911 and entitled The Passion of Dracula, fashioned by Bob Hall and David Richmond, men with more experience in acting and directing than in writing. It opened in New York last September and is still running at the off-Broadway Cherry Lane Theater. The New York director, Peter Bennett, has repeated his assignment with the newly assembled cast here, as have Allen Cornell (set and lighting) and Jane Tschetter (costumes).
The old play has eight characters, the new one nine; and of these, six turn up in both. The new version sticks somewhat more closely to the novel in terms of plot. And, in these days of high production costs, it has the advantage of convincingly restricting the action to Dr. Seward's study, whereas the old play requires three separate sets.
The most important difference, however, is one of tone. The old play was written as a straight melodrama, with everything to be taken relatively seriously. But Hall and Richmond have intentionally laced their play with lots of funny lines; and one remark in the third act rightly puts the audience into an uproar.
At the same time the script is not paced as well as one would wish. There are patches of water-treading and even stasis alternating with patches of too-frantic activity. The play thus produces not only shudders and laughs but also occasional yawns. Still, the new text is fully as entertaining as the old. For some reason, though, the producers are advertising this show as having "an all-star Broadway cast." If words still have any meaning at all, this has got to be the hyperbole of the season.
In an adventurous bit of off-beat casting, the title role is in the hands of the great flamenco dancer Jose Greco, who has never interpreted a speaking character on stage before. Not surprisingly, he moves on stage exceedingly well; also not surprisingly, he is vocally deficient. His diction often lacks conviction, and the combination of Latin and Transylvanian accents and some scanted syllables does not help intelligibility. He brings to the role neither the hypnotic power of Lugosi nor the sensuous elegance of Langella.
The best performance in the show comes from Kevin McClarnon, who plays the mad but not-so-mad patient Renfield, given to eating flies and (instead of the original spiders) fieldmice. He has an expressive face, and skillfully captures both the comic and pathetic facets of this disturbed character. An admirable piece of work.
As the Dutch scientist Van Helsing, I.M. Hobson offers a startling reincarnation of the late Zero Mostel. On opening night, the player of Lord Godalming was not yet secure in his lines. As for the other roles, they are standard summer stock.
A word of praise goes to the solid set and the dramatic lighting; also to the special effects: the fog, the puffs of smoke, the trickling blood, the bat that flies over the audience, and the fieldmouse that jumps out of Renfield's hand and scurries across the floor into the fireplace. There is fun, too, in the soundtrack: chilling animal calls in the distance, snippets of Debussy and Mahler and Holst, and a wonderfully ominous neo-Wagnerian leitmotif for tuba and timpani.