We See Dracula (on stage)

So, today we traveled down to Tacoma to see a live preformance of DRACULA.  We'd seen it before, this being our third time, but it's  been a long time. 

The first was in the Milwaukee Public Library: a staging of the original stage play famously filmed a few years later starring Lugosi. It was by far the best of the three. It cleverly had the heroes suspect Count Dracula but rule him out because they're in England: his 'native soil' wd be hundreds of miles away; it's a real breakthrough for them when they realize he brough the dirt with him.  The mirror-smashing scene was also impressive.

The second was an amateur perforance in Elkhorn in which one actor --I think the one playing Van Helsing-- dominated the whole show, to its detriment. 

And the third was this one in Tacoma, more than twenty years later.  Renfield and Mina were really good, with Dr. Steward not far behind. Van Helsing, Jonathan Harker, and Miss Lucy did pretty well as well. In fact the only one I thought was lacking was Dracula himself. The actor had clealy seen LOVE AT FIRST BITE, and his slightly campy performance didn't fit particularly well with the rest of the cast.

So: well worth seeing, especially for the Renfield. Also, they combined Lucy's four suitors into one (Dr. Steward) and made her less the flirt in Stoker's novel and more the victim of fate.

--John R.

--current (re)reading: LADIES OF GRACE ADIEU by Suzanna Clarke

https://www.tacomaartslive.org/events/dracula/?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD05WzRwcd0gXLbqXeZbfj53kaNW9&gclid=CjwKCAjwyfe4BhAWEiwAkIL8sD5J7fXK8MlxmhfzPBJQ0oEjgkJxdlbrq_6T55xCdrwvZF279rRl_xoC0asQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

P.S.: and, I shd add, we were fortute on the drive up to avoid the forty-five car pile-up 

forty-five cars i-5 washington