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.