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.