Dracula 7

Brighton Shed Productions workshop

Today we had some people come in from the Brighton Shed productions to do a workshop with us.After they had spoken a little about their ethos and ideas, they took us to the dance studio and went through the workshop. The session comprised mainly of working with the ideas of journeys and travelling. First, in pairs, we had to develop a short travelling sequence across the room incorporating lifts and other techniques we'd been shown by the Shed Productions team. Then each pair would partner up with another pair, Heta and I were placed with Max and Liam, and we had to think of a story about travelling to Brighton. Our group chose Heta's story of travelling from Finland to the USA and then to Britain. Having devised 3 small tableaux telling the story, we put it together with the travelling sequences we'd made and presented to the whole class. I think it happened to tie in really well with Dracula, since journeys - both emotional and physical - are a huge motif in the play.

How can we use Artaud's ideas in Dracula?

After the workshop the group had a full discussion about Dracula and we spoke a lot about symbolism. We noted that there was a great  sense of travel, not only the actual travel between England and Transylvania by Jonathan and around England by the rest of the characters, but also there were lots of personal journeys. As I will be playing Lucy I noted that she goes through a huge journey, completely changing as a character throughout the play. There's also the symbol of lust/touching/sex, which of course hugely ties in symbolically with the ideas of temptation and taboos in the play. 

How can we start the play?

Following on from the discussion about symbolism, we then asked ourselves "Well how can we start the play?" As theatre makers we can do anything, the world is our playground - if you'll excuse the pun - and we want to really scare the audience. First we thought about what's scary, what really gets us up at night, too afraid to cross the room to shut the door? Sound gets me. it's the creak of a floorboard of the whistle of the wind at night. We liked the idea of using breathing that we'd explored on Tuesday, and there were lots of ideas thrown around. Some people liked the idea of trying to drown out the breathing with music, however the most common idea was a sound scape. The general discussion was incredible, everyone was pitching ideas. We tried to focus on the symbols of the play: lust, temptation, obsession, sex, manipulation, penetration, seduction, taboos, animalistic - animalistic! Wolves! 

Final idea

We decided that the Front of House would actually be the start of the performance. The minute the audience steps into the building, they are met by FOH dressed as villagers. They wouldn't allow the audience in until the last minute, acting scary and strange, finally leading the audience into the auditorium with lanterns. The room would be dark and possibly even the sound of wind playing. The scene would start off with a blackout and heavy breathing from all of us. Chloe will run onstage, panicked, then start to run up the 1st set of stairs to the the back of the stage. As she does this, the rest of the group, as wolves, will slowly advance growling with the exception of Max, Heta, Harry and myself who will be waiting off stage at the back corners of the top stage. Chloe, clocking the wolves runs up the rest of the bottom set of steps and sees Harry, Max, Heta and myself who by now have come on stage, also growling. She is blocked, surrounded, looking up she see Greta as Count Dracula, smiling. There is a moment of silence before the wolves jump on Chloe and devour her as she screams. Chloe then becomes one of the wolves and we turn to face the audience, as if only just becoming aware of them, and slowly advance, growling. Then as one we all run in attack towards the audience as the lights blackout.