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Courtesy Tracy Martin Photography
For all the forms he has taken and all of the metaphors he stands in for, the world’s most famous vampire is, at his core, pure theater. Though Dracula himself is furtive and shadowy, the story of the dark chaos he brings to Victorian London is full of high drama and action.
That’s what makes it such a good fit for the stage, especially at this time of year, said TheatreWorks Silicon Valley Artistic Director Giovanna Sardelli, who is directing the company’s production of “Dracula,” which runs through Nov. 1 at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts.
“It has everything. There’s romance, there’s humor, there’s theatrical magic, and (there’s) just enough spooky haunted-house fun, and just a hint of gore, to be so perfect for Halloween. It’s just a really good story. There’s a reason it’s lasted for so long,” Sardelli said.
The company is staging Steven Dietz’s 1996 adaptation of Stoker’s novel, which hews more closely to the original tale than many other versions have, Sardelli said.
Fittingly for such a theatrical show, Sardelli drew on her magical past — her time as a magician’s assistant in Las Vegas. She learned skills that she uses all the time in directing, she said.
“A lot of that is just focus. ‘Where do you want an audience to look? And how quickly do you need them to look in one place? How are you drawing their eye, telling them to follow a story?'”
But for “Dracula,” Sardelli added some magic to the production, enlisting illusion designer Jim Steinmeyer to bring an otherworldly element to the count and his world.
Steinmeyer began his career as an illusion designer for magician Doug Henning, and has also created work for Siegfried and Roy, Harry Blackstone, Jr., Ricky Jay and Orson Welles. He designed the disappearance of the Statue of Liberty, performed by magician David Copperfield on TV in 1984. He’s created illusions for Broadway shows, including most recently “Beauty and the Beast.”
As dramatic as “Dracula” is, Steinmeyer says, the illusions aren’t so much about spectacle as about using sleight of hand and other techniques to enhance the character and the story’s supernatural qualities.
“The magic isn’t production stage magic, the way you would see it in a magic show. It’s really kind of subtle pieces that are all about circling his powers as a vampire,” Steinmeyer said. “A lot of it is about portraying him in a certain way — his entrances and exits, and how they’re dealing with these difficult subjects, like the blood transfusions and the madness of Renfield. We use effects through that in subtle ways to tell those stories.”
Developing the magic of “Dracula” has been a team project, Steinmeyer said.
“A good performer will give you a sense of what they think they can do well, and how that would work for them. So it was a collaborative effort, starting with Giovanna, saying, ‘Here’s how I picture this, and here’s what I’d like to see,’ and then us figuring out whether we play it up as a dramatic moment or whether it’s something that just surprises the characters on stage,” he said.
With Steinmeyer, the production not only gained an experienced illusionist, but one who has written a book about the title character.
HIs 2013 book, “Who Was Dracula? Bram Stoker’s Trail of Blood,” explores the influences that shaped how Stoker wrote the character, and how the stage played a role from the start.
“It was deliberately written as a theatrical vehicle for England’s greatest actor, Henry Irving, who was Bram Stoker’s boss,” Steinmeyer said. “One of the first things Stoker did was arrange a copyright performance of it, protecting it as a copyrighted project for the theater, to try and impress Henry Irving with it, and it didn’t work. Irving wasn’t interested in that part, which was a huge tragic mistake on his part.”
Steinmeyer pointed out that Irving seemed to have a penchant for rejecting iconic parts, as he also turned down the chance to play Sherlock Holmes.
Stoker published “Dracula” as a novel in 1897 but it wasn’t adapted for the stage for another couple decades. It appeared on Broadway in 1926, in a production that included magic.
“That was a very innovative show in terms of magicians working on Broadway shows, and it had a very famous effect in it — not a brilliant effect, but a very famous effect — with the trick cape. I’ll say that because we’re not doing it,” Steinmeyer said, noting that it became a signature trick for productions of “Dracula,” at least through the 1970s.
“It was just a brilliant, simple theatrical moment that took everybody by surprise and told the story. It was a really interesting example to me of what’s needed for those sorts of moments on stage.”
Though Steinmeyer described the original 1920s stage version — by modern standards — as “creaky,” both he and Sardelli noted that Stoker’s story has a timelessness to it.
“Every generation, it gets retold with a different emphasis and in a different way, and it attracts audiences again. So it’s a really interesting fairytale for modern times, and I think it’s always attracted audiences for that reason,” Steinmeyer said.
Sardelli said that she found in her research that the “Dracula” story often sees a resurgence in popularity in troubled times.
“It kind of speaks to the moment we’re in. At the heart of the ‘Dracula’ story, is this group of ordinary people banding together and overcoming unimaginable evil. They shouldn’t be able to win, but they do,” she said.
TheatreWorks Silicon Valley stages “Dracula,” through Nov. 1 at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View; tickets are $34-$115; theatreworks.org/mainstage/dracula.
