Dracula 16

Why are some scenes naturalistic and others not?

There have been artistic decisions throughout the play to have some scenes very naturalistic and others very unnaturalistic. Similarly there are some very dark, disturbing scenes and some very light hearted scenes. The reason for this is simple: contrast. If the play is exactly the same throughout, dark, unnaturalistic and extreme then the audience would become desensitised.  They wouldn't be as effected by the content of the play and it wouldn't be as effective. It can also be very boring to watch the exact same thing for 2 hours straight. 

The style and practices we're studying and incorporating in the play - Surrealism, Theatre of Cruelty and Antonin Artaud - mean that we can play around a bit. in naturalistic theatre you must rigidly stick to the style or the play would be thrown out of context and it just wouldn't work. In the styles we're using, however, you don't have to follow the rules so strictly, you can play around and mix things up.

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Act 1, Scene 8 - Heartwood House

This scene is very naturalistic, there is little action from the chorus. We do mimic Florrie - "Yes miss, no miss" - and whisper at her "You're not part of the family". This is to show the class distinction between her and the other girls. We put this in because Florrie is not in the original book, Liz Lochhead put her in for a reason. She represents a lot, particularly the class divide and the silliness of Mina and Lucy. We wanted to highlight this, and it also shows how we, the chorus, as part of what Dracula represents can get inside people's heads and draw out their insecurities and failings. This is something Dracula targets. 

When Lucy is talking to Mina and says "All this time and not a scrap of pen from Jonathan", Jonathan lunges from the crowd of lunatics holding him back. This is him trying to escape from Dracula, however we grab him and drag him back, cackling. As the scene is going on, a small group of the lunatics will be creeping down the stage menacingly. We want it to be so that as Florrie is left alone at the centre of the bottom of the stage, muttering to herself, you can see the creatures looming behind her. 

Finally, at the end of the scene, we (the lunatics) simply run, screaming and laughing, off-stage, and Florrie, Mina and Lucy also run off, leaving Jonathan alone on-stage to begin the next scene.

Act 1, Scene 9 - Dracula's Castle

We started off with lots of discussion on how we could do the beginning of this scene. The stage directions state: 

Jonathan is shaving. He has take up a wooden-backed mirror with handle from his luggage and has lathered up his face.

There have been questions throughout the devising of the play about whether or not to use props,and the group decided that unless a prop has significant symbolic meaning then it should be replaced by mime. There were some ideas about how we could represent the mirror then; some people suggested no need to show it, that Heta's acting would make it clear; others suggested using the entire group to show the mirror physically. However, the point was raised that we'd already had representation of a mirror before, in the opening scene with Lucy, and why not do the same thing? So we decided that the "other" Jonathan, Max, should be the mirrored image. The scene started off with Jonathan shaving, Max with his back to the audience so they can see the "real" Jonathan clearly. When the mirror shatters, Max runs off stage. 

When Jonathan, with the key given to him by Dracula, rushes to open the door, there is an outbreak of howling as he opens it and he snaps it shut. The howling then mutes to growling and Dracula exits, leaving Jonathan weeping Mina's name on the bottom step. Then the vampire brides music begins and in pairs, with the men entering from the left and the women from the right, a wedding procession starts. The women are vampire brides, seductive and deadly, and the men are almost zombie-like, entranced by them. Vampire Lucy is last, descending along, and Mina follows, falling asleep at the top of the steps - this is symbolic of her somewhat seeing the scene in her dreams back at Heartwood House.  

When all of the pairs have passed Jonathan and reached the bottom of the stage, spread in their groups, everyone reaches their left hand up to their necks, almost tenderly, and the men drop to the floor. The Vampire brides walk among the bodies, taunting Jonathan. there was some debate as to how we'd do this, as their are only 3 brides scripted. We originally decided to choose the three actresses who play Florrie, Mrs manners and Lucy be these brides, however we wanted the brides to show that it's not just the specific women, it's all women, and any person can become this. So we [the girls] split into three groups and share out the lines between the groups. Jonathan stutters "Who are you?" to which we reply teasingly: "Who? Who? Who?", circling him on the bottom step. Andy said that initially we were playing it too safe, to "nice", and that we needed to get into the roles. We aren't lovely, sexy girls, we aren't ourselves being sexy. these are like animals, they aren't human, they're beautifully terrifying. 

We wanted this scene to be big, as it's such an important scene in the play, and that the power of Vampire Lucy (Bride 3) and her hold over Jonathan had to be made huge. So we decided to add a lift. Izzy and Heta are both lifted in the same way and circle each other in these lifts, Jonathan reach for Lucy and Lucy drawing him in closer. When they are placed back in their original places the men drop to the floor and Lucy advances on Jonathan. She touches her body erotically, with the vampire brides behind her, mirroring her actions. She then reaches out for Jonathan and almost as she touches her neck she snatches her hand back, as if she's grabbed a rope around his neck and is pulling him in. As her "fangs" touch his neck, Dracula sweeps in and pushes her back. The vampire brides group together, hissing at him, and there is a confrontation. As Dracula leaves, he throws a bag on the floor at the centre of the stage for the brides. Inside there is the sound of a baby crying, a beat of silence, and then the brides attack.

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Scene 6 - Bedlam

We start off scene 6 in Bedlam, at night time, all of us slumped over - lunatics didn't have the luxury of beds, we sleep where we sit. It was fun doing this scene, moaning and wailing through nightmares, I gave my character a sort of straight jacket and wrapped my arms around my waist. The scene has a fantastic look about it, all of the lunatics wailing and moaning with Renfield at the very centre. When Renfield starts to sing "Who at Cock Robin, my head it throbbin', the sound of sweet sobbin', sobbin', sobbin'..." we all join in, screeching and cackling madly. By the final "Sobbin'", the noise has grown to a crescendo so that Nisbett has to shout to be heard. When Renfield smashes the plate of food out of her hands, we all react, waking up and laughing, then as Renfield spots the scuttling spider on the floor of the cell, we - the lunatics - mutate into the spiders ourselves. When Sophie says "...it's not nice, eating dead things", we lift up our hands and inspect them. The idea is that it's like we've got a trail of blood trickling down our wrist, we are fascinated by it and even slightly turned on by it. When She says the word "Necrophiliac", we slowly lick the 'blood' off our wrists. It's perverted and weird but it really shows off the perveted insanity of the play, the lunatics are completely given in to Dracula and all he represents. They aren't holding back on or suppressing any of their desires, this also ties in directly to Antonin Artaud's ideas which is why the lunatics and chorus work is so vital in the play. We could have decided to simply go off stage when we aren't actually performing, however the decision to incorporate the entire cast in every second of the play and use all of these ideas that I've been putting down is directly related to Artaud's ideas about ritual, releasing the double and being cruel to the Audience and the Actor.

The scene ends with us all, as a chorus, repeating Renfield's lines "Come into my parlor, sad the spider to the fly". It's sickening and scary, but for the girls Andy also wanted it to be sexual and perverse. Then, from spider positions, we slowly start moving our shoulders into the bat movements we went through with Siou in Movement. We slowly lift up, starting the movement from our spine and shoulders, rolling into our arms and rising as bats. We based our movement as a group on something similar to birds flying together, or a shoal of fish. Lots of individual journeys moving as one entity. We flow about the stage, from one side to another before surging up to the back of the stage and into our positions to begin the next scene.

Scene 7 - Dracula's castle

We start scene seven in the format shown above, myself in the position of the front left gargoyle, however our bodies start draped over the back steps. As the "doors" swing open, there is a beat before the two hounds rush forward at Jonathan, who lets out a yell, then sit in guard dog position. The doors and the draped bodies, in complicity, drop to their knees in a sort of bow (doors) and turn up and out (bodies) and the bodies transform into gargoyles. The gargoyles are sort of like the lunatics but frozen in terrified, pained expressions. Then Dracula is shown for the first time, stood at the top of the steps. It's a magnificent image, and the slow decent down the stairs is such a key, poignant part of the play. 

As Jonathan lingers before the threshold of the castle we all lean forward; it's Dracula's desire, he's compelling and willing Jonathan to enter and when Jonathan steps into the castle we all let out a sigh of satisfaction and return to our position. 

After Dracula has welcomed Jonathan, he claps his hands and summons supper. At this point the chorus scatters out into a semi circle, sitting in front of the audience facing in to the stage in a watchful pose, almost like animals waiting. There is very little action from us, with the attention in on the scene. This scene is very naturalistic, despite the completely unnatural drama at this point in the play. 

When Dracula mentions the "throng of your London crowds", we all get up and walk about the bottom of the stage, visualizing the Victorian city. This shows how Dracula has immersed himself in the English world without leaving his castle. It symbolizes both his supernatural ability to leave his physical world and join the rest of the world, a very scary ability, but also his presence in everyone. Everyone has parts of all that Dracula represents and embodies - temptation, evil, tabooed desires - and therefor is susceptible to him. We then go back to our horseshoe position.

Again, we get up and become werewolves when Dracula and Jonathan discuss them, circling Jonathan and growling. As Jonathan utters the words and Dracula translates them, we repeat: "ordog, pokol, stregioca, vrolok, vlkoslak". As we are about to pounce, Dracula ushers us away and we slink back to our place in the horseshoe around them. 

The scene ends with Jonathan hypnotized by Dracula and when Dracula exits one wave of the watchful creatures runs up the stage and grabs Jonathan, pinning him down on to the steps. Then another wave of the creatures rushes to the stage and sits, watching the audience and the front of the stage, and that it how the next scene begins. 

This is a very long scene, however due to the naturalistic nature of it there is not a huge amount of chorus work to set.

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Scene 4

In scene four Renfield is back in Bedlam being taunted by Nurse Grice. We return to our lunatic roles again, acting like dogs just as Renfield does. When Renfield spits water in Grice's face, we all react, cheering and cackling. Nurse Grice pushes Renfield down onto the front of the stage, and the lunatics as a group start to mirror What Renfield does as he monologues:

My master will bless you. He'll punish you! [point] My master is at hand [grab hand]. And I am here to obey his every command [bow].See the moon [twitch focus up to moon in the top right hand corner above the audience], Mr drinkwater, see how sweetly she sail, she wax once, she wane, and my master, my master her come again [fall to ground]. Oh yes [slowly look up], yes Nurse Grice, him come! And me? Me, I sit, I sit with my birds in the wilderness [pick up bird in right hand], pretty birds, little victims, pretty ones, how they do flutter! [eat bird] The struggling sacrifice, Nurse Grice, ain't it nice, [fall onto hands, glaring up at audience] that do quicken the heart, that give a little flutter...

 The final line, "That do quicken the heart, that give a little flutter" is said in chorus,in a violent whisper. We then descend back into madness and, laughing manically, move into the line along the back of the stage for the next scene. 

Scene 5

In scene 5 the chorus work is mainly reacting, we react when Jonathan starts to flirt with Mina, cupping her breasts and they exchange innuendo ridden banter, then as the bell strikes for lunch the entire chorus makes the "Gong!" sound. We generally sit at the back, watching in full lunatic mode, reacting with perverted giggles and screeches when Jonathan stutters over Florrie's offer of leg or breast (The chicken, sir, leg or breast?), any sexual references ("You can be my secretary") and we really react when Jonathan mentions the Count. This scene is very naturalistic and more for character and plot development of Mina, Lucy, Seward and Jonathan. Since they are the main protagonists of the play they must have developed characters that the audience can associate with and "root for". Therefor, symbolically, it's not as important as other scenes and our role as chorus is not as vital.