Put on by Shake & Stir Theatre Company in Brisbane, Australia.
I saw them 10 years ago, last time they put on Dracula. And since then this has remained the benchmark by which I measure all adaptations of Stoker's novel. The performances, the atmosphere, the set design were all top notch.
I saw the 6:00 pm showing, but especially for Halloween they had another one starting at 10:00 pm.
Last time I saw it, I very nearly didn't. Honestly, the posters did not make it look enticing. I thought it would be an attempt at a hip modern adaptation, taking aesthetic cues from later Anne Rice or Vampire Diaries type stories. I decided to take a chance and bought tickets to the last possible show, and it was almost sold out already.
But I couldn't have been more wrong. Aesthetically it is a perfect adaptation. It felt very authentically like how I picture the novel in my head. Dracula does wear a leather jacket after he turns young, but with the fog and lighting and the distance to the stage, it doesn't actually feel like doing a modern hip take, and instead just felt like a practical way to show how Dracula has gotten younger and stronger upon departing Transylvania.
Tonally, it worked great. Some of the abridgements detracted a bit from some of the themes. There was some lip service to theme of modernity vs ancient superstition, but it really gets de-emphasised compared to the novel. But it also played up to a greater extent are the sexual themes, making the vampire's bite and possession come across as deeply sexually-charged. Not a unique take by any means, but it helps reinforce what's there in the novel about sex and sexuality.
Unfortunately, they wrote out Quincy Morris entirely, and Arthur Holmwood is mentioned but never seen. But instead of coming across kinda naive as Lucy in the book does to modern audiences, the play leaned into the idea of her as sexually promiscuous, reinforcing the difference between her and Mina. Instead of being long-time friends with the future Lord Godalming, in this play, Lucy is portrayed as having been all-but-engaged with Dr Seward, before she suddenly meets Arthur and then gets engaged quite quickly. A change that bothers me from an "I want the adaptation to hue as close to the original as possible" perspective, but which on deeper inspection I actually rather like, because in the original novel it's a bit of a stretch to read her as promiscuous, and with other cuts made for time and casting reasons (with just 6 actors, the cast was already doubling roles—both of the women double as Dracula's brides, and van Helsing is also Renfield, who is only ever seen through a cell window—the lack of Quincy and Arthur really makes sense), this change really helps.
Dr Seward takes the place of Quincy as the character who dies in the final encounter, which prompted some comments afterwards from someone in the row in front of me. "Jack took Quincy's death.[...] What did they do to my boy Quincy!?"
Last time I saw it, I had not yet read the novel. I knew the story only through cultural osmosis plus from sitting in the pit of my high school production of Frank Wildhorn's Dracula: The Musical. And in the pit you get only the vaguest idea of what's actually going on on stage (I still have absolutely no idea wtf Oklahoma was about). Now I've read the book twice and seen multiple film adaptations, and I can confidently say that this play remains my favourite. If you happen to be in or near Brisbane and tickets are still available, or if you happen to be able to get to Brisbane in 2036 or thereabouts when I assume they'll be putting this on again, I highly recommend it. 9/10.
