Starred review from April 27, 2015
This full-cast production is a masterly depiction of the Victorian gothic ethos in Stoker’s classic tale. Told through a series of letters and diary entries, the novel begins when Count Dracula lures a young English lawyer named Jonathan Harker to his castle in Transylvania under the pretense of a real estate transaction, but Harker soon discovers the count is a vampire and the diabolical intent in the real estate deal. It falls to the resourceful Professor Van Helsing, along with a handful of intrepid heroes, including Harker and his fiancée, Mina, to stop the count’s evil plans. The readers each have a distinctive voice for their characters and do a perfect job of conveying the emotional content of the assorted letters and diaries. Jamie Parker’s portrayal of Harker is particularly stirring, especially as the character slowly pieces together the horrific truth about Dracula. Alison Pettitt succeeds at providing a gamut of emotions for the voice of Mina throughout the story. Each reader hits the mark with precision. For anyone who has never read (or for anyone looking to revisit) this classic tale of gothic horror, this is a fine way to do so.
March 31, 1997
Dracula scholar Wolf (The Essential Dracula) brings intellectual curiosity and an easygoing style to this entertaining compendium of Dracula lore, which will appeal equally to devotees and the uninitiated. Beginning with an examination of blood rituals and taboos, a survey of vampire folklore from Bulgaria to China and a review of the biology of vampire bats, he goes on to discuss Bram Stoker's 1897 cult novel, Dracula, and its roots in gothic fiction, in the gory deeds of Vlad the Impaler, 15th-century mass murderer and prince of Wallachia; and in Stoker's repression of his alleged homosexuality. Wolf disputes the suggestion of Stoker's most recent biographer, Barbara Belford, that Dracula is a sinister caricature of the Dublin novelist's unacknowledged love interest, actor Henry Irving, yet Wolf maintains that Stoker poured all the pain and confusion of his repressed feelings into his one masterpiece. This guidebook decodes the symbolism and eroticism of Dracula movies from F.W. Murnau's 1922 Nosferatu to Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 Bram Stoker's Dracula. Wolf also scans the vampire fiction of Stephen King and Anne Rice, and investigates Dracula's multiple meanings in pop culture. Photos not seen by PW. (Apr.) FYI: Leonard Wolf's daughter, Naomi, has a new book due out in June from Random House.