Dracula

:[` (<-- vampire)

Happy Early Halloween!

To celebrate the first day of the greatest supernatural month of the year, my FSEM went to see Dracula at the Denver Center last night, opening night. Preceding the performance, we went to a "talk" with a panel of people from the production team: props master, director, vocal coach, lighting designer, and set designer. They told us all about their hard work in putting together this version of the famous novel and gave us a lot of insight about what we were seeing so that when it came time to see the performance, we (at least I did) noticed a lot that we might not otherwise have noticed.

For example, the set was very simple, yet very genius. There were no set drapes to speak of, but the lighting projected scenes of the castle walls, daytime skies, and a blood-red moon. The rest of the set was intricate moving parts (the floor opened and small tables, chairs, and desks would rise up) that helped provide a more tangible sense of the world. Also, the costumes were beautiful and (from my knowledge) accurate to the time period (1892). Of course I would notice the costumes ;)

Having never read the novel or seen the original movie version, I cannot say how well this play followed the storyline. But I can say that the story I saw was very in-depth. The actors did a great job at being vampires, or doing vampires' biddings; playing a "mentally ill" patient (I put this in quotes because this character has more insight into the events than the sane characters); being hypnotised or possessed by vampire thoughts; and even just staking the undead. There were a fair number of humorous scenes and even some scenes that I'm sure were intended to be serious and spooky, but at which we all laughed at. I hope the company wasn't offended by this!

If I could give one criticism to an overall splendid play, I would say that several scenes in the second act (and even the first) could be shortened or simply cut out because they slowed down the mounting plot line to the point that the climax scene is nearly anti-climactic. Also, being a lover of crimson corn syrup (or stage blood), I was disappointed in the frank lack of blood in a vampire play.

Afterwards, my friends and I all came home (via light rail of course; I am beginning to know the RTD system very well) and settled in early.

More blood next time please!

xxo, S