Dracula 15

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.