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.