Since I haven't read the novel, I will not be able to look at the play from a comparing point of view, but certainly after reading the book I will. Now, I will only talk about my first impression of the play, discuss the different characters and expand on what kind of ideas I have currently.
Mina and Lucy had a much bigger parts in the play than in the movies, and probably the book. In the movies, both of the women seem like perfect examples if the Victorian woman, but Lochhead has expanded on these characters and actually given them complex personalities. Mina, the older sister, is the responsible one who acts like a woman is expected during those times. Still, as she says herself, she is easily influenced, especially by her feistier more problematic or, how the men in the book describe it, 'hysteric' sister Lucy. Lucy has had some troubles after the girls parents passed, depression and anorexia. Lucy also differs from Mina with the fact that she is a lot more sexualized than her sister. When Mina is seen as the image of purity, not even after being under Draculas spell does she fall under temptation, Lucy embraces her beauty from the beginning and isn't afraid to display playfulness about her desirability, something that Mina doesn't show.
Florrie is a housemaid, a character that doesn't appear in the novel nor the movies, but was especially created for this play. She is an interesting add, since her meaning, I think, is to show just how privileged and even spoiled Mina and Lucy really are. These two women, especially Mina, might have been images of the perfect Victorian woman, but the playwrite has decided to show a different side of them, by adding someone not-so-privileged to their side.
I was surprised of how little Dracula was actually present in the play. He has a greater part in the first act, but the second act he basically disappearances, with occasionally appearing to do his attacks. It is only at the right end of the 2nd act that he shows himself to the others again, only to die soon after. I actually really liked this, since it created suspense and made him somewhat a mysterious and scary character. I can't wait to start working on the different parts where Dracula just appears on stage, planning out these moments will definitely be a challenge, but I can imagine it being fun as well.
I found the range of characters very interesting, all of them had their own interesting personalities, so really being able to play any of them should turn out to be a well expected challenge. I especially liked how The Nurses, Grice and Nisbett were designed to be played by one person, creating a very complex character within the play. They(she?) work at the asylum, treating maniacs, when in fact they themselves, two minds, share one body. Even the dynamics between them was very interesting to read in Act two scene sixteen. They talked back and forwards and what made both of the personalities works so well together, was the fact that they weren't written to be the cliche "good and bad", but they both possessed attributes from both extremes. I am not completely sure yet, what their meaning in the play was, I'll have to look more closely into the scenes they are in, to determine what their role in the story was.
Renfield also turned out to be one of my favourite characters in the play. I enjoyed him in the movies I watched as well, but some how the play brought out his meaning better. He consumes living creatures - flies, spiders, birds etc. - to give him life force and vitality. He knows that Dracula is coming, it seems that he has known it all along, and in a way he tries to warn the others about it, even if he identifies as a servant for the vampire. Renfield isn't necessarily doing this willingly, but might be under a spell or just after long period of being under Dracula's influence, Renfield has given up on fighting back the evil.
I feel that Lochhead has embraced the lunatic in all human beings, interpreting a set of characters and giving all of them moments of insanity, whether it is from jealousy, mourning, revelation or something born with.
Van Helsing, Jonathan Harker and Doctor Seward didn't impress me that much. They had big parts in the play, but I personally haven't yet had a good grasp of these characters that much. This doesn't mean that they wouldn't be interesting characters, quite the opposite, it is just that they didn't fit into my liking that much, nor the roles I imagined they would have int he play. Van Helsing and Seward seemed to be rather static characters, not having much character development within the play. Harker had some, since he turned from the naive young man, who gets imprisoned by Dracula, to a fearless fighter against Dracula, but it seemed that Mina made a much larger sacrifice during the process of trying to slay Dracula for good.
There is plenty of changes in setting , jumping from the asylum to Dracula's castle and then back to Heartwood house, which is something we need to take in consideration, when thinking about designing the set for our play. The smartest thing to do, would be to keep it as simple as possible, perhaps dividing different parts of the stage to different locations and using lighting and sound to our advantage in creative different moods for different locations. Also, in scenes where the play displays up to three different settings at the same time, lighting could be used to separate these different places.
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