Last weekend the Department afTheatre. Dance. and Film/Video
outdid itself in the Arts Center Studio Theater. "Dracula," directed
by visiting director Blake Montgomery '93, was a spectacularly intricate web of
mystery. More a show than a play, taking place on a minimalist Brutalist set,
"Dracula" engaged without entrancing, mystified without terrifying,
and provoked thought without confusing.
The adaptation from the Bram Stoker novel, created by the
cast and staff of the 1997 Spring Production Company, was, simply put, a
melange. Putting a classical Greek chorus around Victorian characters,
providing startlingly accurate sound effects onstage, and with unobtrusive
lighting, "Dracula" was more theatrical than it was theater.
It was, to be sure, an excellent production. The set, which
did not change throughout the show, took on characteristics of a castle, a
house, a tomb, a train, a canal, and a bustling seaport. Character movements
and dialogue served as the only transitions between locations; lighting,
directions of character entry, and intricately blocked movement throughout the
set provided the visual cues which ensured the audience was aware of scene
changes.
The main driving force behind the story of
"Dracula," that or evil, was persistent but not scary. The secondary
force, latent Victorian eroticism, was only present in the character of the Count
himself, who engaged in pelvic thrusts with victims, while drinking blood from
their necks.
Complicating matters of audience comprehension, but
providing illumination into the story, was the gender reversal: male cast members
played female characters, and female actors played the male roles. At first
disorienting, this switch became believable and integrated well into the
performance.
A part of the show which did not fit well was the sole foray
by a character into the audience. Dracula, terrified of his pursuers. raced up
the stairs, paused, and then exited from the balcony. It seemed a gratuitous
move, in a theater world where audience involvement is becoming commonplace.
Monologues were most often directed at the audience, as expositions, rather
than solitary ruminations.
The cast was solidly commited to flexibility. Costumes did
not change throughout the play, despite widely differing circumstances and
locations. The change of a character's nationality took advantage of the
caricature skills of a native Texan actor; the set's versatility and
believability has already been explained. Each member of the chorus also had a
part in the actual plot of the tale. Further, the physical demands of moving
around the set on foot, much less on all fours or on stomachs or backs, were
strenuous, and were more than in a more conventional production of this story.
The character of Dracula, played by Michole Biancosino '98,
was excellent. Not only was the makeup and costume extravagant and clear from
the first moment about who this character was, but Biancosino's portrayal of
the possessed and tortured Count was at once reserved and passionate. Motivated
by desire, relentless, and fearful of failure, Dracula's attempts to create
more vampires, and his ultimate defeat at the hands of determined
cross-wielding pursuers, were well played. They conformed to some stereotypes
of Dracula's behavior, while also illustrating a tortured side of the Count
often lost amid the evil and fear he symbolizes.
The rest of the cast, some well-known on the Middlebury
stage, and others newcomers, all conducted themselves with what can only be
called Middlebury aplomb: their skill, courage, and attitude reflected how hard
hey thad worked, and the challenge of the intensity of the story they
performed.
This was, it must be noted, a rare event in the history of
Middlebury theater. Not a single person stood to applaud at the end or the
Saturday matinee performance. Everyone stayed seated throughout the applause.
There was no encore appearance of the cast. It was as if the entire audience
had become infected with some of the apprehension and malaise they had just
seen acted out on the stage. The audience was also swift to depart after the
cast retreated from the stage. Neither an indictment of the show, or a
laudatory indicator, it demonstrated that uncertainty about the world had been
assumed by the audience, at least in the short term.