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| Dracula promo poster ©Reverend Productions - http://www.reverendproductions.com/#!productions/ccq |
It is quite significant that, given my extensive
experience with film, my gauge for assessing a play based on theatre’s
aesthetic criteria is wholly shot.
Seriously, I can’t seem to assess anymore whether the play was ‘good’ or
‘bad’, but I found it incredibly interesting.
That’s why I’m writing this review now – it was interesting, and I want
to tell you about it.
Reverend Productions in their own words in the
programme, is an ‘Oxford-based repertory theatre company’ who ‘creates new
plays around familiar stimuli. Working
through immersive, extended improvisation and a collaborative writing process,
(Reverend Productions) create(s) work which seeks to explore the enduring
relevance of well-known and well-loved stories for contemporary theatre-going.’ And while this may sound awfully pretentious
(as well it may be – I’m not really sure) it admittedly creates the cumulative effect of being fresh. Or messy.
However, this collaborative and improvisational method of writing and
performance is one of the links to my experience with Abigail’s Party, being a form of the writing and performance
process popularised by Mike Leigh.
While the tickets were sold through the Oxford
Playhouse – the spot in Oxford for dramatic
theatre – the performance was at The Old Fire Station, a relatively small area,
with a cafe and a few studios with the expressed aim of raising awareness of,
and providing a haven for the homeless community. The aims of the locale are both ambitious and
respectable, and I was able to watch the play safe in the knowledge that there
were Zumba classes taking place in the next room. It was an unusual setup (probably. Again, I
don’t know) for a production, but the facilities were extremely adequate. But the space was my second encounter with
the proposed text. The first was a
poster I found in my workplace.
The promotional poster was mostly black, set in
what looks like, possibly, a public bench at night. The standard pavement cracks, indicating the
separation of the individual blocks, is the most well-lit object in the image,
and above that, a standard wooden bench, with metal supports. Sharp overhead lighting makes these objects
apparent, though the bench is still largely in shadow, and sharply standing out
in the top right of the image is the light reflecting off a long wisp of blonde
hair belonging to a beautiful, mysterious lady in a long black trenchcoat, the
overhead lighting giving her striking features a look of menace. She looks to the left in anticipation, and
just below the centre of the image is her hand, resting on the bench, fully
lit. DRACULA,
in bold grey letters, starting from the middle left of the image and imposed
over the back of the bench and across the darkest part of the woman’s chest.
Why would I spend so much time writing about the
poster? Because it is this, more than
anything, that convinced me and made me excited to go see a small local theatre
production when I generally have very little interest in attending plays. I tried explaining it to a friend of mine,
who declined going with me. “I’m really
keen on adaptations of Dracula, I
said.” I am. I find it a tremendously fascinating story,
and it was the aesthetics of the story and renderings thereof that captured my
imagination and frightened me as early as the age of 7. The aesthetics of the poster design was also
highly appealing. The darkness, the
threat, the mystery surrounding it was enthralling, and based on my knowledge
of the story I could imagine how it fit into the framework of the tale.
“You think that girl on the poster is hot and
that’s why you’re going,” says my friend.
She’s not wrong – entirely. What
I said before about liking Dracula
adaptations was true, too. Really, I
promise.
I knew it wasn’t going to adhere to the novel,
that it was a contemporary imagining, and was only populated by a cast of
four. How does a small theatre
production company in an intimate venue with a limited cast communicate the
ideas and themes of the novel – a novel which was adapted into an excellent
three-hour BBC mini-series in 1977 starring Louis Jourdan – in a 70 minute time
frame? The sheer ambitiousness of the
project itself is worthy of commendation, and the execution is itself
fascinating to watch unfold – the narrative alone (which I am supposing is relatively
consistent in spite of apparent improvisation, due to the fact that certain
music and lighting cues, along with certain props, are in place at key points)
is intriguing in its minimalist approach.
The play, as I saw it, is entirely set in the London
flat of Jack (Brian McMahon) and Lucy (Eleanor Rushton – featured on the
poster): a newly married couple already experiencing initially unspecified
problems. As the production begins, Lucy
and her longtime friend Alex (Charlie Howitt) are drinking together in the
apartment, catching up and waiting for Jack to return home. Almost immediately – which I can tell if it’s
clumsy or efficient – Lucy reveals that the night before, she had a dream in
which a man appears in front of her bedroom window (odd in itself as they live
on one of the higher levels of the building), whom she allowed in and
surreptitiously made love to.
So far so Dracula.
Alex reveals that she has let her brother Johnny
(Kit Spink), recently returned from an extended and mysterious journey abroad,
and she is putting him up in her flat in spite of his erratic behaviour and
over-protectiveness. Lucy apparently
knows Johnny as well, and encourages Alex to bring him over for dinner, with
the aim of encouraging Johnny the opportunity to socially interact.As Jack, a psychologist working with children demonstrating extreme sociopathy, returns home the marital tensions become apparent, but the interaction is all amiable and friendly. Johnny comes by to walk Alex home, and Lucy initiates a conversation, which Johnny “people call me Renfield” (eh? yeah?) takes to, becoming thoroughly interested and focused on Lucy, frequently offering to be available to her anytime it is needed.
The night goes downhill quickly, Johnny, er Renfield, blowing up at increased insistence that he talk in detail about his time abroad, Lucy revealing to Alex in confidence that she actually went out the previous night, and met this strange man on the waterfront and submitted to him, in very unspecified ways, and lots of arguing and typically British discomfort following. Throughout, the most tense moments are broken by neighbours shoving notes complaining about the noise under the door, and Lucy begins behaving in an increasingly sinister manner.
That, of course, is the set-up, and, in spectacularly half-British fashion, what results is a combination of a Mike Leigh-esque breakdown of social restraint to reveal true underlying emotions, along with set pieces worthy of a measured Grand Guignol. Perhaps the cumulative effect can be compared to a modern-day stage production of an early Hammer Horror, as, yet again, film is really my only frame of reference. But underlying this, there is an obvious attempt to create something deeper and more significant with the characters which I wouldn’t say is always successful, but is never boring.
I actually am quite sad that the run was so short
(1 week, to my knowledge, I having seen it on 28 May) as it would interest me
tremendously to watch it again. I’d love
to view the level of variance that improvisation provides, what is consistent,
and if I am able to delve deeper into the overall structure of the
production. For such a loose-sounding
structure, the piece was incredibly tight, fitting the allotted time, plot
points hit at the right moments, and it never felt narratively unbalanced (the
plot turned at the right points to engage further interest).
With Dracula,
Reverend Productions has at least turned out a piece that is intriguing,
shocking, mysterious, erotic, and completely shot through with unease and
menace. It is a strange little beast of
a play, or, at least I think it is. I
don’t know, I don’t go to the theatre much.
Dracula website:
Details for Reverend
Productions:
info@reverendproductions.com
