Who couldn’t use a good laugh right about now? How about 90 minutes’ worth, nonstop? As the threat of viral infection wafts about the city once again like some Victorian miasma, we’re due for some comic relief. You’ll find it, amid some stage-fog spritzes, in Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors, playing at New World Stages.
The writing team of Gordon Greenberg (who also directs) and Steven Rosen have goosed up Bram Stoker’s 1897 horror classic and given it the parodic, neo-minimalist treatment (think The 39 Steps, et al.).
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★☆☆ review here.]
Scary, this version is not. Carrying on the grand tradition of Charles Ludlam, the creators have turned the source material on its head — dumping it largely upon the abundant red ringlets of Count Dracula’s first victim on British soil, the love-starved Mina (antic Arnie Burton, in his element). Costumer Tristan Raines and wig designer Ashley Rae Callahan have got Burton done up in furbelows of russet curls and butterscotch taffeta. Beneath the drapery lurks an indelicate flower panting to be plucked — ideally by the the suave, handsome newcomer in town.
“Handsome “is an understatement. The minute that Jonathan Harker (Andrew Keenan-Bolger), hilariously reconstrued as milquetoast real-estate agent, calls upon the count in his Transylvania castle, we’re gob-smacked. Abruptly dispensing with a black-lace vest (shades of Rocky Horror), this bloodsucker — often portrayed as sickly and weird (Nosferatu) — is a veritable Adonis. Miraculously, James Daly has comic chops to match his cut physique. (Where did the casting team find this new face, not to mention bod? Winning awards in Canada.)
Moving on (reluctantly) … At the sight of their new neighbor, Mina experiences certain, um, urges, which Burton physicalizes with vaudevillian panache. Though the Count would prefer to tap the alluring carotid of Harker’s smart, ambitious fiancée, Mina’s sister Lucy (Jordan Boatman), any throat in a drought will do.
Called upon to minister to the stricken Mina, Burton quick-changes into the butchly Teutonic Dr. Van Helsing (further kudos to Raines for somehow hybridizing a woman’s tweed suit and lederhosen). Burton manages to shoulder two roles simultaneously onstage — as do, at some point or other, the other three non-vampiric members of the cast.
The yeoman among them is Ellen Harvey in a handful of guises. She plays both the Laingian asylum director Dr. Westfeldt (“Insanity is merely society’s failure to recognize individuality and sparkle”) and its prize inmate, the bug-scarfing Renfield. Harvey’s changes aren’t just quick, they’re split-second. Thanks to Victoria Deiorio’s clever sound design, we hear the raggedy Renfield howling as he plummets out a turret window only to reemerge seconds later, calm and collected, as his own keeper.
No amount of description can convey the delights of this ingenious rejiggering. You may gasp, you may marvel, but mostly you’ll be too busy laughing — thanks to all the artistry brought into play.
Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors opened September 18, 2023, at New World Stages and runs through January 7, 2024. Tickets and information: draculacomedy.com
