Act 2 Scene 15, 16 & 17

Scene 15

Int he play, the actual scene consist of only one line, Seward apologizing from Lucy's body for failing her. Yet, our group wanted to make it a big spectacle, since it is killing off one of our major characters and she deserves proper send off. We thought it would be an excellent idea to really use Antonin Artaud's technique in this, by creating a ritual, a kind of a ritual that we haven't used in the play before. So we started by simply sitting in a circle, throwing ideas to each and discussing them. From the beginning, before even we had gotten close to devising this scene, I had had the idea of having sort of a rising rhythmic war call, similar to one exercise we had done in class. As I expressed this idea to the group, everyone seemed to agree, that this would be the most effective way to do it. We started by creating three different rhythms, that would start one by one in the scene, ending in a almost chaos like heart beat, representing the anger and intensity inside Seward. The beats and the movements within them also represented different sides of the play, and this scene. One of the rhythms mimicked the movement f a staking, while the other represented Dracula and his influence in the lives of these people.
    We decided that it would be good to start the scene with the 'Nani Nani' song, that has been sung in earlier scenes as well. We would start in black, singing the song with harmonies. We tried out singing it in choral or unison, but since Lucy created a harmony for us, it made the sound of this scene so much more effective, without crowding it too much. After the first verse, everyone would start coming on stage in a funeral march manner singing the verse again. For the march, we also tried have rhythmic stomping, but then figured that it was too slow and difficult to everyone to be on the same pace and still get to their places on time. Then, once in places, me and Sophie would start the ritual, having everyone follow, every group one by one. Seward walks in with the stake. As he reaches the middle stage, me and Sophie will add the last yells to the rhythm. Seward starts rising his stake, rhythm escalating, and once he straightens his arm into the air, everyone will stop. Seward approaches Lucy in silence, staking her. We can only hear the last screams of Lucy as she falls into eternal sleep. After this Seward will say his line and the light will fall into black.

Scene 16

  This scene is a simple bit in the play to break away from the horror that the rest of the play follows. It is very much Grice and Nisbett talking about Renfield and how it is a pity that he is dead. It is  a lighter moment before the big finale and after the large ritualistic scene of Lucy's staking, creating a moment for the audience relax a bit. It was suggested to us that the scene could be done in the style of the Chuckle Brothers, ahaving the two nurses throw Renfields body around, creating a very physical comedy scene.

Scene 17

   This is the last scene of the play, so of course we wanted it to be a big finale for our story. All of the chorus should be used, but at the same time giving the characters their proper conclusion, so at first I thought this scene would create a bit of a challenge for us. But as it turns out, we figured out the scene quite quickly, perhaps because the time running out, but also because we as a group had a clear idea for this scene from the start. Our tutor Andy really helped with this scene, directing most of it, but still giving us the chance to speak out our own ideas considering the scene, adding small touches to the chorus work.
   Since we had the possibility of using different kind of cloths in the play, and rather than building large sets, we decided to represent the walls and doors of castle Dracula with two large pieces of black cloth, run across the upper stage, help by the chorus members. Three bangs of the men trying to break the door open, and the chorus would move the cloths forwards and back, to represent the doors not bulging. Then, after Mina says her line "Stand aside, you men!" the chorus will run on the steps, going under cloths creating a horrifying pathway for the people to enter trough.
   After this Mina has her big monologue about her experience travelling, showing her new vampire-like side of her, showing that she is really still trapped and unfree of this curse.    As Van Helsing mentions the dawn arriving soon, the chorus people on the steps will first fall to the side, then get of the step as Dracula reveals himself at the top of the steps. The top of the steps have really been Draculas place throughout the whole play, symbolizing the fact that he is something mroe of a human, and almost god-like creatures. He sees more than we think and he is watching us all all the way trough the play. It is just natural for his last appearance to start from this highest step. We will have two chorus members on the sides. pulling a red cloth, creating the massive cloak of Dracula. The rest of the chorus members will take the black cloths and wrap it around Mina, showing the pull that Dracula has on her. Seward runs up the steps to revenger for his dead wife Lucy, only to be easily killed by Dracula. Rosy light floods the stage and Dracula fall down in agony, the chorus members following, This is when Jonathan starts to run up to finally stake Dracula, but Mina sprints up, takes the stake herself and kills Dracula, once and for all. The curse on Mina is broken and after a moment of hesitation, the two lovers are together again. They cross the hands of Seward and Dracula, forgiving him of his bad deeds and realizing, that Dracula was a victim himself. After this, Jonathan takes the red cloak of Dracula's and pulls it down the steps into a V shape. Van Helsing sets off to kill the vampire brides, chorus standing up. As Van Helsing kills the vampire brides, one by one, parts of chorus will scream in agony and fall to the ground. Jonathan and Mina fall to the bottom step to make love, and the play ends with white, pink and red petals falling(on the screen).
   

Act 2 Scene 13 & 14 - Development

Scene 13

Cemetery. The chorus members will go along the the stage to work as gravestones, looking down as a praying angel. Jonathan, Seward and Van Helsing will be  hiding behind the lower steps stage right. They are waiting for Lucy to come out, but before that they discuss the realness of vampires, since Seward cannot believe this to be true. He represents the fight of science and belief in unnatural things, an so he cannot internalize that Lucy could still, in a way, be alive. But as he is just saying how he doesn't believe the myth of vampire is supernatural, he stops mid sentence, because Lucy has emerged behind the audience with two children. The gravestones will rise their faces at this point, marking the arrival of Lucy the vampire. Seward is hexed by Lucy's tempting, but Van Helsing comes between them with a crucifix. Lucy recoils off-stage, leaving the two children two cry. Van Helsing uses them to convince Seward that it is of great importance that they slay Lucy, getting Seward to agree.

Scene 14

At the change of scene, part of the chorus will form a door, like in the beginning of act 1 scene 7, and the rest will go off-stage for the remaining of the scene. We decided to do this, because there is a lot of happening in this scene, and we felt as a group that chorus might just distract from the main action.
   Mina will still be on the steps, soundly asleep, until she hears the call of her dear friend, Renfield. So, she invites him in, only to find out that it Dracula changing his voice as the doors open. He has captured Renfield, who tries to attack Dracula with the last attempt to save Mina, but Dracula is not so easily stopped. With a single hand movement he flies Renfield of the steps, who will be lifted by the chorus member on stage and carried to stage right and laid down on the floor. After this the chorus people will go on the stage to become wolfs, observing. This is also when Florrie enters and Dracula has spokes to her about how he will have her tomorrow, but now it is time for Mina. He then suck at Mina before forcing Mina to suck on his blood from his wrist, continuing t with his speech and slowly turning Mina to his kind. Just as he is finishing, Jonathan runs out on stage with Seward and Van Helsing to stop Dracula, but he has already done his deed, affecting Mina and then running away. The scene continues with the characters talking about Mina's condition and later find out that she is able to see Dracula's where about by being hypnotized. They figure out that Dracula is travelling back to Transylvania and back to his castle. So, the group decideds to follow him and to get rid of him once and for all. Mina insist on coming with them, asking them to blindfold her, so that Dracula cannot see them coming. But first, it is their duty to kill Lucy and the task is given to Seward.

Act 2 Scene 9, 10, 11 & 12 - Development

Scene 9

In Bedlam. Nisbett and Grice are having a tea break, while Renfield has his attempts of warning them of Dracula. As he sais "Help us" the other lunatics will join him on the yells, only to be interrupted by Grice talking about the Bloofer Lady. At first, we didn't have much going on in this scene, until someone had the idea to have Lucy a.k.a. The Bloofer Lady come and lead the lunatics with her behind the audience. At the end of Grices speech, Lucy and the lunatics will come back on stage, scatter around, and with a simple hand movement Lucy does, the lunatics will fall down to the ground, dead.

Scene 10

Ticking sound starts. The chorus gets up from the ground to get to the positions for the next scene. Mina and Seward are up on the stage, Jonathan on the third step and Van Helsing on the second. Chorus will separate into three groups; two on either side of the steps in threes, mimicking the movements of the pendulum of a grandfather clock and one group recreating Jonathan's experience with the vampire brides

Red circles= The Chorus.
Chorus members middle of the floor stage are Jonathan of act 1, Lucy of act 1 and two other vampire brides.

   As Van Helsing hypnotizes Jonathan to remember the happenings at Castle Dracula, the ticking chorus members stop to stand in neutral. After Jonathan says in his speech "I am asleep." Me and the vampire brides and the front will slowly start walking towards each other. At the line "One, my head - aah!" Jade as a vampire bride will take my head and turn me so that I will be facing the audience. "Two, my legs, no!" Lucy will go to my right leg and as a bride caress it temptingly. "...the third one yes oh she down down down." Izzy will go in front of me and kneel down. "Her breath, sweet, too sweet..." She will start rising up to get ready to bite my neck. As this is happening I will also close my eyes and follow the speech lines accordingly, looking out and then down to Izzy. The line " I am six hundred years old, I am thousands of years old, I'm not just a little girl." will be repeated by the entire chorus, to make it as Jonathan is hearing the vampire say it again to him in his mind. As he yells "Mina!" the entire chorus will scatter around the front of the audience in a semi-circle to observe the rest of the scene as calmed down lunatics. The rest of the scene consist of discussion about Jonathans experience, Dracula and his influence, how to beat this creature and protecting Mina, since they know she would be the next victim. As the men and Van Helsing leave Mina to rest on the steps, they discuss The Bloofer Lady, revealing that she in fact is Lucy. After the scene ends, they will join the semi-circle as lunatics, leaving Mina alone on stage.

Scene 11

Renfield will run out from the other lunatics on to the stage, stating his little poem. He is soon chased by Grice and Nisbett, but Renfield kicks Grice in the groin to escape with the cheers of the other lunatics as his background music. Then the lunatics and the nurses will run off-stage as well, cheering.

Scene 12

Whilst having the faint cheers of lunatics on the background, Mina tries to pray, but failing. Then, a soft call of her name is heard. We had it so that the entire chorus would be a part of this repeating the lines "Mina", "Mrs Harker", "Listen", Let me in" and "Quick" in different loudnesses, times and ways to create a uncomfortable call of words lapping over each other. At the same time, the chorus will start walking in to stage, slowly and in a trans like manner. But as Mina forbids them with a loud yell, the chorus will stop and Renfield will jump out to warn Mina. But before he is able to finish, Brice and Nisbett will come out to capture Renfield again and take him back to his cell. At the same time the chorus will start backing down, disappearing into the darkness.

Act 2 Scene 6, 7 & 8 - Development

Scene 6

Red circles=Chorus

The chorus the stage will start miming as horses aligning themselves into two lines, on each sides of the highest two steps and start trotting in place, being almost cartoon like horses rather than real ones. This sets the style of this scene, which is almost too happy, since Jonathan in the scene has suppressed all the bad memories of Dracula, and Mina is just happy to be with her husband, unknowing of her sisters death.  Mina and Jonathan will sit on the top step bobbing up and down as if they would be in a carriage. The newly weds have a discussion about lunch and how excited Mina is to meet her sister Lucy. his scene seems not to fit in with the play, but I think it is there to show the extent of Jonathan's trauma but also just to make the audience feel worse once they find out about Lucy's death. During the scene, the people from scene 5 will remain on the floor, frozen in place.

Scene 7

We start with Mina and Jonathan getting off-stage and Lucy with Van Helsing joining the chorus. The chorus then creates a square shaped cell for Renfield after a smaal burst of manic laughter, since this scene is placed at Bedlam. Nisbett, separating from the cell goes down to Seward to have a discussion about Renfield, but after Seward excuses her and goes to talk to Renfield, she will join back into the cell
   The idea of the cell came from me, since I thought that it would a way to use the chorus in a way that doesn't take away from the action and the characters, especially Sewards feelings. I suggested that cell could start moving slightly, having the chorus members take a turn step, always replacing the previous chorus members place, going in rounds. The lines to change at would be "He is at hand.", "...zoophagous to boot.", "I don't want anything to do with souls.", "...vestigial or atrophied soul.", "My sould to wake.", "Life's all right.", "Or what? Drink?", "...burdened with a soul?" and "...'life' in the future?", which after the cells would just continue moving, as well as buzzing after Seward line " Flies!". I thought this would create tension and show the anger and aggressiveness that Seward is feeling inside of him. We tried it out and people thought it could work well if we rehearsed it well enough. We had a couple of extra rehearsals where we went trough this scene, but for some reason we didn't manage to get the movement right or look good, especially as we got to do it in the actual space, so Sophie suggested to change it. Instead of moving in a circle, we would create the cell with our hands. People in the edged will create the corners and the people in the middle will continue doing different hand movements on the same cues. This was a good change, since it was easy to learn, but also it worked better on the actual stage.
   As Seward would take Renfield out of the stage down to the floor to beat him, Nisbett will come back into the scene. This is when the chorus will stop moving their hands and stop the buzzing, and turn towards Seward, as judging his actions. We will stay in this position as Mina and Jonathan enter crying till the end of scene.

Scene 8

This the second big speech from Van Helsing, talking about Lucy's death and his King laughter that he will now laugh for the last time. It was evident that we wanted something happen with the chorus while Van Helsing is delivering her monologue, and so me and couple of other girls got the idea to have us play out the funeral of Lucy's. It would easy for us to carry Lucy down the steps and lay her down int he middle of the floor, gathering around her, since we were already up on the stage, having Van Helsing stay up on the steps giving her speech.


   We felt that we still needed to have a song to sing during the funeral, since it is kind of a tradition to do so. We started out by singing 'Rose Rose', but since it has been so used in previous performances, we needed to find a new one, something that is simple and easy to learn. I really felt that the song should be somewhat eerie, since we are making a more horrific play here and I found this Romanian lullaby. I didn't really think that the song would have had to be English, since in the early discussion we agreed that travel is one of the big themes in the play, and this song could symbolize the connection between England and Romania because of Dracula. Originally the group turned down this song, since they waned it to be an English one, but after Andy asked me to show it again, with Liams song, this was picked since it was much simple and worked well with the mood of the play. Of course, we wouldn't have to learn the entire song, but decided to only learn the last verse to have a dynamic short hymn to sing throughout the play. So, we would sing the song first once getting ready to lift Lucy and then again while carrying her down the steps. During Van Helsings speech, the chorus would continue humming the song, finishing the scene with singing the song once more. Then, we would burst into loud manic laughter and go into our Bedlam positions for the next scene.

Act 2 Scene 4 & 5 - Development

Scene 4

At the end of last scene, we had our chorus around the the audience, facing inwards to Dracula who has wrapped his cloak around sick Lucy. Of course Dracula isn't actually supposed to be there but we thought this would show the influence Dracula has on Lucy and how he has affected her already since his last visit.
   In this scene, Van Helsing will be performing a blood transfusion between Seward and Lucy, the two lovers. Since we hadn't used the chorus much in this act yet, we thought this could be a great change to Artaud's rituals to start of this blood transfusion, by having the chorus illustrate it. We started by thinking what a blood transfusion consist of, and of course it starts with having the needle put in your vein, to get the blood. Someone also pointed out, how nurses usually tap your hand, to get the vein visible and this inspired us. Each chorus member would start by presenting the elbow pit of one hand and tap their arm, flowingly, three times going from upper arm to wrist. Then everyone would do the same with the other arm and then, with a loud sigh and swinging of hands, would turn and change their place slightly. The sighing represents the satisfaction Dracula is getting from the blood transfusion, since all the blood Lucy receives, will also go to Dracula. The idea came much from the people(Liam, Max, Sophie, Lucy, and I) who went to the University of Chichester, where we saw a dance performance, where the dancers would come on stage, one by one, with this kind of a swinging and falling, like movement forward. So, when trying to think of a way for us to go into the blood transfer, me and Sophie remembered this and used the help of others to develop it further to fit our needs. We would repeat this four times until we end up in this position on stage:

Round circles represent the chorus members

At this point Van Helsing will tie a red ribbon on Lucy's and Seward's arms, connecting them. This red ribbon obviously represent the tube that the blood will transfer trough. Now, a heart beat will start  as the chorus has flopped down on their upper body. After four beats each side will start a movement up and down with the beat, showing the strength of Seward and Lucy, Seward getting weaker and Lucy stronger. There is four different stages, 4.energetic and powerful, 3. neutral, 2. tired but persistent and finally 1. absolutely exhausted and powerless. Each stage, or tension, will be repeated three times, by each side, but the stage right group will start in stage 4 going down to 1, representing the blood going out of Seward and his weakening existence, while stage left group is Lucy receiving the blood and gaining strength.

Poor drawing of the four tensions.

After the beats, Seward will fall to the ground, near fainting, and the chorus on his side will follow, staying down on the ground. For Lucy's side, Dracula will come and lead them across the floor up on the stage, showing that, it is really Dracula who is receiving the blood and gaining strength.
   The scene starts to talk about Lucy's well being and what they can do to help her get better. Van Helsing offer her an crucifix, which Lucy, already starting to turn into her vampireself, tries to disregard. In the end, Van Helsing convinces her to wear it. When Van Helsing suggests to put up some garlic flowers around the room, the chorus members on the floor will stand up with a white ribbon with flowers on it, and start walking in a slow march to scatter around the edges of the floor in front of the audience. We thought it would be nice to have us hum a song and we started by humming 'Rose Rose', but changed it since it is a very used song in performances done at the city college. Later, after already working on some of the future scene we decided to use this Romanian lullaby, since we will be using it in the future scenes as well, creating a continuity within the play. The flower ribbon will create a sort of barrier and protection for Lucy, protecting her from any outside forces.

A bit later, Florrie enters the scene and cunning Lucy uses her authority on her to give her the crucifix, but also take down the flowers. As Florrie does so, she will go and gather the ribbon from the chorus members, and the people holding the flower ribbon will fall down on their knees when their part of the ribbon is taken off, to show how the protection Van Helsing was trying to put up for Lucy, is now weakened and gone, letting the evil enter at any moment. As Florrie gatheres the ribbon, the maniacs on the upper stage will laugh showing their satisfaction of this action. As Florrie leaves, Lucy will welcome Dracula, coming from behind the audience, with open hands to make love to her. But instead of sweet relief, it soon turns violent and the scene in agonizing gasps from Lucy when she is bitten by Dracula once again.

Scene 5

Lights change. The chorus member still on the floor run up on the stage to join the other maniacs. Lucy is in the middle of the steps, seemingly dead. Then Florrie enters to discover the limp body of her miss. She calls for Van Helsing, and she and Seward rush in. Lucy collects her last human strength to wake up and ask for her dear sister Mina, only to collapse on the ground, weak of power. Seward goes to her, but Lucy's vampire side has taken over to try and fool Seward into 'a kiss', but Van Helsing sees trough her, preventing anything happening to Seward. She tell Seward to kiss Lucy on the forehead and only once, after which Lucy goes into eternal sleep. We decided not to have the chorus be a big part of this scene, since it was important to let Lucy's death have its own space and focus, leaving the chorus just observing the happening on the stage.

Act 2 Scene 1, 2 & 3 - Development

Scene 1

The act 2 starts with Van Helsing middle of the stage, with Lucy sleeping on the lower steps, where her bed in act 1 was. We first had Lucy come off-stage in the next scene, but thought, that it would be more convinient to have her on the stage right at the beginning. This scene was mostly planned by Andy and Jenny themselves, whilst everyone else was working on other scenes, so I wont get into too much details of the development of this scene.
   The entire scene consists of Van Helsings monologue, where she talks about her everyday routine followed by the contents of Seward's letter. She starts to prepair for his trip to England, by packing his suitcase, which is shown by Jenny miming, since we have decided as a group to only have props that are absolutely necessary. It would be difficult to have all the props present, since we are all on the stage most of the time, so it would only be awkward to have us fishing out props every two minutes from off-stage or under the steps. As Van Helsing finishes off her monologue, she will step off-stage from her position at the middle of the stage.

Scene 2

Lucy talks to Florrie about her cut off hair, in her near death existence. We follow these two women discuss the hair and then when Florrie starts reciting the letter sent from Mina to Lucy, the chorus will start walking in from all sides of the stage, and behind the audience, in a trans-like manner, as if "they were moths and Lucy was a bright light". We stop at the edges of the audience, creating a sort of circle around the stage and the scene between Lucy and Florrie. We stand there, observing in quiet, until this bit of the conversation:
LUCY. Oh yes... Are we in the madhouse? Maniacs start laughing
FLORRIE. Asylum. Stop laughing. Stoneyfields Asylum for the sick.
LUCY. The madhouse. Start laughter again.
FLORRIE. All the world's a madhouse. Stop and remain in silence for the rest of the scene.
   As the scene ends, the chorus will turn into manic children, playing war games with each other until killing each other off and falling to the ground. Jade came up with this idea, to contrast the quiet chorales beginning of the act 2.

Scene 3

This is quite a simple scene as well. All the maniacs will be on the ground, playing dead, while Grice has his big speech while kicking Renfield with Nisbett observing. They are on their cigarette break talking about how Renfield escaped and how they found him near Carfax calling his master. "Master, master, I'm here to do your bidding. Now that you're near me, do not pass me by." this line Grice is supposed to be quoting from Renfield, but we decided it would be much more effective to gave the chorus whisper line in an eerie welcoming sound. At the end of the scene, the two nurses stub out their smokes and leave the stage. This is when Dracula comes out of the shadows and lifts up Lucy to sitting in her bed. This is also when the chorus will rise from their position to face Dracula and get ready for starting scene 4.

Act 1 Scene 12 & 13 - Development

Scene 12

At the end of previous scene, the chorus will turn back into lunatics and run up to the stage to observe the next Bedlam scene. We decided that we would not have the usual scattered Bedlam, since we thought it would be more convenient since the next scene would start in a line on the stage, but also brings a contrast to previous Bedlams scenes, really focusing on the changing moods of the desperate Renfield. The scene consist of the nurses strapping Renfield down for Seward to give him his doses of medication. Renfield, trying to warn him for what is to come, is ignored. He has a speech about how "he" or Dracula will come and "she" Lucy will let him in, warning Seward but also wanting him to suffer in some level, just like Renfield himself has suffered. At the end of his speech the chorus repeats the line " That'll get you!" after Renfield. The chorus transition to their places along the edge of the stage by becoming whirlpools. At first I was supposed to join them at this point, but after planning out the entire last scene of this act, we realized that me and Bella would be better to come off-stage when needed, since we have long red cloth too sort out before coming on.

Scene 13

This scene is very much about Lucy becoming sick and showing her first sign of being under Draculas influence. This is probably why our tutor Andy wanted it to be a very naturalistic scene throughout, having the chorus simply sitting on the stage in a straight line, legs crossed just observing what is happening in the scene. Seward bring weak Lucy to the middle step, to her bed, where Florrie has been making sure it is as comfortable as possible. After this Seward soon leaves, leaving the two women to discuss about Lucy well being and dreams she has been seeing. After this they talk about Florries sweetheart and agreeing that Florrie will get this night and the next morning off, since she can that way properly say goodbye to her Jem. After this Seward enter again with a bouquet of red roses. Florrie will start giving the roses to the chorus members, while they continue the conversation. As Florrie exits, Lucy begs of Seward to stay with her for the night, but as a true gentleman would, Seward refuses and leaves Lucy alone for the night. 

   Lucy goes to sleep. Suddenly she wakes up to see the moon from her window and rising from her bed. She open the window and says arms wide: "Come in. Come to me, my love. Come in" This is when Dracula comes from the top of the stage and goes to Lucy. The chorus members follow him to create a sort of a staircase along the either sides of the steps. As Dracula picks up Lucy and carries her up the steps, the chorus will have ripped the petals of the roses and throw them as Dracula passes. This is when me and Bella come on stage from either side of the stage without red cloths in a march like manner, give the end of the cloths to Lucy and Dracula as we reach them and then go down the steps, spreading the cloths symbolizing the blood that Dracula is now drawing from poor Lucy. Lights go down to blackness. End of Act 1. 

Act 1 Scene 10 & 11 - Development

Scene 10

This scene is the beginning of the storm, storm that Dracula uses to his advantage to travel to England but also have his first encounter with Lucy. Since the scene is actually set in three different places at once, I suggested what if we had the chorus create a triangle between the three different places; Bedlam, Heartwood and Castle Dracula. It it very much the connection these three places have that inspired me with this, but also it was pointed out to me that the chorus sort works as chains, forcing these them to be connected against their will. All of the three people are somehow trapped, Jonathan forced to stay at castle Dracula against his will, but also for a long time his fear, Renfield being held down in a madhouse, and Mina alone not knowing of his husbands whereabouts, trying on a wedding dress she might not ever use. The chorus, sitting down cross legged, will be making the sounds of the storm, rocking slightly like a boat in a storm would.
   Renfield is singing a sweet song about mad Tom as Jonathan wakes up to his hell, after the incident with the vampire brides. Mina, at Heartwood, is praying of her future husbands safety. As Jonathan escapes, I will stand up on the highest step and then jump off-stage. We tried once having me join the chorus, but it seemed somewhat silly and confusing, so as a group we decided that it would be best for me to stay off-stage until a better time to join the chorus.

   For her song, Sophie found it hard to figure out a tune for the song Renfield is singing, since the actual song was hard to find. So, during one of our extra rehearsals, when me and Max were running lines with each other, we took a break to look for a song to help out Sophie. We found this song above, and felt that the melody was quite sweet but also easy to learn. The lyrics are not the same as the piece in our play, but when we tried it our with Sophie, the poem seemed to work with this melody just as well. With Andy, Max helped Sophie to learn the tune to work as a start for this scene.
   As Mina says "Please, please, please..." Florrie and Lucy, and Nisbett and Grice will get up from the triangle to put Mina and Renfield each on their own straitjackets. Though, Mina's jacket isn't a literal one, but her wedding dress. This is also when the chorus will start to rise slowly, keeping up the whaling sound of the wind and rocking of the stormy sea. After awhile, Lucy starts wondering around, having Dracula come down and wrapping her to his cold arms. Mina goes to look for Lucy, who has been sleepwalking. Lighting strikes and we can hear Lucy scream and that is when Dracula lets go of Lucy and let her go back her sister. Before we had Dracula go back off stage, but then realized that he is needed in the transition soon, so rather than leaving the stage, he will act as he is hiding from Mina as a dog or shadow in plane sight. This is when Renfield starts yealling "Masterfaster" louder and louder, Chloe, our Renfield for the second act, will get up and the two Renfields will join in on the last lines together, both siding Dracula, and then collapsing to the ground to their knees. There is is a bang of ship crashing to shore and everyone falls to the ground.
   When the storm is over, Dracula will get Izzy and Lucy up from the ground to the top step to face away from the audience, and then walks off stage.

Scene 11

The scene starts by Florrie getting up and starting to clean up around her. As Mina start getting up Florrie tell the story about the storm and a ship, where apparently everyone was found dead. After the monologue, Lucy has the line " And the air this morning is so sweet you'd think it'd never get dark again." the two Lucy's of the show(Izzy and Lucy) will stand up and face each other to say this line in unison. Then, after a deep breath, as if Lucy breathing the life out of Izzy, Lucy turns around to face the audience and the other two women on the floor, and Izzy collapses. This is a quite a big turn in the play, since it represent the change in Lucy's character, pre-Dracula and post-Dracula. Lucy then repeats the line coming down the step too join the two other women. After this the scene remains quite naturalistic, the discussion of the three women remaining mainly stage left and centre, only having Jade rising her hand to give the letter from Jonathan to Mina. As we found out that Jonathan is actually safe, the chorus will start noticing this and wondering about his escape, as if it would be Dracula himself finding out about Jonathan escape.

Act 1 Scene 9 - Scene Development

  This scene was a bit of a challenge for us to create, since from the beginning we wanted it to be one of the scenes that would get the audience to wet their pants, but also make them awe in wonder. Even though the vampire brides themselves do not have a big role in the play, nor did they have in the books or movies, they still play an important part when thinking about the character of Jonathan, but also the power Dracula has. The brides are Count Dracula's turned-into-vampires-brides, who have been under his influence, for who-knows-how -long, and have become these extremely sexual predators, thirsty for blood. 

   The vampire brides really bring out the suppressed temptations Jonathan has within him, want for lust and sex. This is seen in the previous scenes as well, but it seen as friendly talk between two men or lust for ones own future wife. Scene 9 though show the twisted suppressed perversion about Lucy and the extenct he is ready to go. He wants them and is willing to trade his freedom for 'a hint of a kiss', or in other words, a blow job. 

   The scene starts with quite a straight forward part, where Jonathan is said to be shaving his beard. We thought that it would be clever and also consistent to our 'no props unless absolutely necessary' approach to have the shaving done with the two Jonathan, me and Max, mirroring each other, as they already earlier in the play in the first scene with the two Lucy's. It was important that the gestures we did with this part were big and clear for the audience to understand what exactly are we doing, and it took us some time to perfect the shaving, especially when Jonathan notices Dracula behind him, but does not see him in the mirror image. The timing of the turn is difficult to perfect, since we cannot see each other any longer, but with setting a certain count or time with the turn it should look great on stage. So, as Jonathan is scared by the realization, that Dracula isn't exactly human, he drops the mirror in horror. With this we tried Max just collapsing to his place on the steps, but later realized that Max is actually needed to come on off stage in a little bit, and so we soon changed it to him running off-stage as the mirror breaks, just like Lucy's mirror image does in the first scene when Mina enters.  After this the scene takes on a bit of a naturalistic turn, since the brief conversation with Dracula and Jonathan is done only them up on the stage, alone on the entire arena. I feel this focus towards the relationship of these two characters is important, to show how Jonathan fears Dracula, but hasn't yet fully accepted the fact that Dracula is a far more dangerous creature than just a mere human. 

After deciding the frame of the beginning of the scene, we focused on the lifts planned to carry out. this idea came from our tutor, Andy, which everyone agreed to be the best way to make this scene stand out. It also would be very Artaudian, creating a symbolic meaning with the lifts rather than showing literally what we  After the lines of the brides, talking about who should get to feed on Jonathan first and Jonathan asking who these creatures were, we would execute the lift, representing the, well, sex and lust between Jonathan and the vampire brides, mainly the vampire mockery of Lucy. More about creating the lifts in my movement blog->

    Perfecting and creating the lifts took us unbelievably long time, forcing us to do extra rehearsals multiple times. I feel, that we wouldn't have needed so many extra rehearsals for just this scene necessarily, but what I found was, that almost always there was someone missing, who was a vital part of the lifts. It was frustrating to first convince people to stay after classes to rehearse, just to find out people who were needed, would not show up. Luckily we were able to find time to practise the lift, even if we only had ten minutes between rehearsing other scenes to go over the lifts and get comfortable with them. 

  Now that we had the 'main spectacle' of the scene planned out, all we had to do was to think what can we do to lead up to it, since as far as we had gone in our scene so far was at the end of Jonathan's and Draculas discussion. Some one realized, that since the lifts are done at the bottom floor, we should have Jonathan end up at the bottom of the stairs at the end of the conversation, which made much sense, since when Jonathan first enters the Castle Dracula, he is considered to be inside when he steps on the first step. So, after Dracula hands Jonathan the key, I as Jonathan would rush down the steps to open the door, only to realize there are wolfs outside, making him too afraid to leave. This way there would be no awkward transition for Jonathan to get down for the lift. As for the brides, I had the idea of having them enter in sort of a 'bridal march' on to the stage, by having them come in off-stage, rather than having everyone waiting on stage. I thought that everyone could separate to two sides of the stage, brides and the men, and as Jonathan is left on the lowest step, sobbing for Mina, the brides and the men can reveal themselves with the bridal march, pairing up in the middle and continuing to go down the step, past Jonathan and then separate to two sides of the lower stage. This way we get to use a ritual(the bridal march) connecting to Artaud and his philosophy in theatre as well as make an effective entrance for the brides and show their higher status on stage. We wanted to play on this, showing the power of these monster women and the group thought of perhaps doing so by having the brides kill their 'spouses', also giving Jonathan the change to fear them, making the fact that he ends up lusting for the brides even more disturbing.

   Since the brides are predators, after Jonathan's blood rather than himself, we thought that it could be good to have the brides circling around Jonathan after killing the other men. This way we could have focus on the lines they say, but also show their intentions and even animal like behavior. I really thought of them the same way as the wolf's in the opening of the play. They start by circling their victim, making sure they cannot escape and then attack. But in the case of the vampire brides, I felt they were in it for the fun as well, playing with their to-be-supper a little before attacking. While ringing Jonathan, the brides can tempt him by light touches, caressing him and over all keeping their lustful eyes on him even if they wonder else where on the stage. But after Jonathan asks for who they are, all of the brides would be around him, playing with his unknowing mind. To the get to the actual lifts, I thought that perhaps Jonathan could simply try get away from the vile brides with last of his powers of fear, before giving into the temptation ergo the lifts. I really was inspired by the mix of fear and temptation that Jonathan has in this video, taken of Dracula the musical. He tries to escape from brides, only to be faced with another one, taking longer and longer to turn his back on them, when finally giving up to his lust.
   While in the air, Jonathan, seeing the 'Vampire Bride Lucy', he gives his key to freedom. After the lifts we decided the vampire Lucy and Jonathan are put down on either sides of the staircase on the floor, giving the brides opportunity to show their talents of seduction, luring Jonathan into their cold hands. Just as Vampire bride Lucy is about to fasten her teeth on poor Jonathan's neck, Dracula comes out on the stage and down the steps, stopping the brides. As Dracula leads Jonathan into 'safety', he will throw a rugged bag, that will evidently have the baby in it. Of course there won't be an actual baby inside, but we will rather get the effect from sound effects.
   The challenge with this I think was having the girls of our class become the seductive but dangerous Vampire Brides and being able to truly manifest the predatory like creatures within their spoken lines. They cannot be straight forward scary, but have that whisper like seductiveness in them, since they are trying to lure Jonathan into giving the key to them. We thought that it would be very effective to have most of the lines be spoken in a chorus, since we do not only have three brides, but seven. This can bring on an element of myth and dream like touch, since I am not sure if Jonathan believes in them at first.