Theater Review: A mixed bag Frankenstein and Dracula off-Broadway

Dracula

Written by Kate Hamill (after Bram Stoker)

Directed by Sarna Lapine

Frankenstein

Written by Tristan Bernays (after Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Directed by Timothy Douglas

Starring Stephanie Barry

Classic Stage Company, Manhattan

February 11 and 14, 2020

The innovative Classic Stage Company is now producing staged versions of the classic horror tropes Dracula and Frankenstein, both gothic novel classics of the nineteenth century. These shows were billed and justified as updates addressing modern issues of sex and race. The two adaptations were very different..one more conventional and overtly political, the other minimalist and only vague in its updating and political messages. Neither fully succeeded and entertained, but both were provocative.

The more conventional production was Dracula. It followed the Bram Stoker (and classic 1931 Bela Lugosi) plot pretty carefully, with Dracula migrating from Transylvania to London to seduce nubile young women, drinking their blood and making them into docile (if bloodthirsty) vassals. The original 1897 novel was intended to shock the Victorians about female repressed sexuality and to indulge male fantasies about how, under their Victorian corsets, women were actually sexually willing. But the plot stayed neatly withing the societal bounds of authoritative men controlling weak women.

This two-act update made some telling changes to add a feminist flavor, and somehow pulled it off without altering the basic plot. The learned Dr. van Helsing, who solves the mystery of sick/dying London women and kills the vampires, is here played by a forceful young black woman, who also fights prejudices of white male doctors about her acumen and ability. The vulnerable Mina Harker, whose husband Jonathan is overtly recruited (and in this version, sexually seduced) by Count Dracula, gets her courage together and helps kill the vampires, summoning the courage to criticize her husband for his controlling behavior. The script by Kate Hamill occasionally becomes just a little too preachy and angry-woman focused, and couldn’t resist going off on tangents about how male-penetrative logic and science are evil and limiting and prevent us from seeing the world fully and spiritually. But these insertions were tolerable, and did not distract too much from the fun and from the potency of the allegory. The play mixes humor, camp, and true horror special effects well. I loved the lurid red-black-white lighting effects, the fast scene changes, and the way in which bitten victims then wore flaming red ribbons, neckties, sequins, etc. to show their blood. A standout in the excellent cast was the playwright Ms. Hamill, who played the insane Dracula-thrall Renfield with marvelous humor and creepiness (this role was played by a man in the novel and various movies). This Dracula was a good effort in updating a classic horror movie to make modern political points.

This Frankenstein was more radical, and less successful. The minimalist single act condenses the rambling, long novel into only 80 minutes, and the cast is stripped down to two characters with no costume or scene changes, like a modernist Beckett play. Stephanie Berry plays The Monster in the first part, the Doctor in the second. She is complemented by “the chorus” Rob Morrison, who plays several plucked instruments, sings, and acts as an all-purpose foil to Ms. Berry. The plot generally follows the Mary Shelley 1818 novel which preceded Dracula by some 80 years. Shelley’s novel is very unlike the Hollywood film of 1931, starring Boris Karloff as the monster. The movie stays pretty much in the “evil experiment-monster terrorizes the village, then villagers burn down the castle” popular mode. In contrast, in Shelley’ novel (she was the wife of the poet Percy Shelley, btw) the unethically created monster, made of discarded body parts, becomes a literate, intelligent man who spends much of the novel trying to bring the irresponsible Dr. Frankenstein to justice for having created him without the means to succeed, or even a partner (an attempt to create the Bride fails). The novel ends with the Monster, having killed his creator, drifting out to sea on an iceberg. Shelley’s novel is seen as an allegory both on the evils of unrestrained science and on the evil at the heart of us all—we are all a mix of good and bad parts.

When I first saw that this adaptation would use a black woman as the Monster, and mostly follow the Shelley plot, I quickly saw the potential for an excellent metaphor on slavery and race. Dominant whites created an oppressed group of “monsters” (black slaves) by taking them away from their African ancestral home, disrupting their families, and brutalizing them, then now need to deal with the anger of those oppressed people as they seek revenge/retribution for past wrongs. This allegory was hinted at in this adaptation, but never made explicit enough to make it a truly political allegory as Dracula did. That’s too bad, since I think this would have been very effective if done well. Stephanie Barry was outstanding in the early part of the play as the emerging monster, first unable to speak, then speaking with partial croaked words, then becoming fully literate. Her speech and motions were evocative, both showing an “emerging” person. What was less convincing was how the writer had the actor take on the role of Dr. Frankenstein later in the play. This was confusing, and diluted any intended allegory on race (if there really was one). Unfortunately, we were left with a missed opportunity here.. an innovative idea of a stripped-down allegory on race that instead got muddled up with obeisance to the details of the Shelley plot and too many plotting devices. I’d love to see this idea better executed.