Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors
By Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen
My thoughts on Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors or…a bat out of hell goes for your “jokeular” vein
“To die laughing must be the most glorious of all deaths” Edgar Allan Poe
So sayeth Mr. Poe who could never have imagined the killer, gender bending, raucous, non-stop hilarity of Dracula : A Comedy of Terrors currently being staged by Dallas Theater Center at the Kalita Humphreys Theater. This inspired madness is directed by Blake Hackler at a breakneck pace that literally leaves you gasping for air. The sight gags, quick changes, one liners, puns, and double entendres are endless in this send up of the Dracula legend.
The action which moves from Transylvania to the British countryside to London is represented by the dark Gothic set by Dahlia Al-Habieli and deftly evokes every Dracula film you’ve ever seen. Nicole Iannaccone ‘s wonderfully dramatic lighting and Joshua Nguyen’s sound complete the foreboding atmosphere. There’s also crazy good work from Cole McCarty who designed the costumes, wigs, hair, and makeup.
Donning those costumes are five actors with boundless energy and who know a “fang” or two about comedy. Esteban Vilchez is Jonathan Harker, a mild-mannered realtor who comes to Transylvania to make a real estate deal with Count Dracula. Vilchez gives Jonathan a Clark Kentish quality and a nerdy meekness that gives way to a surprising change late in the play.
Jonathan is engaged to the lovely Lucy Westfeldt played by Molly Searcy. Searcy’s Lucy is an independent woman with a scientific curiosity. She is the quintessential old-time heroine, gorgeously coiffed and attired as she discovers more about vampires. Searcy is hilarious calling for “service people” who emerge from backstage to change the scenery and in her determination to awaken some lust in Jonathan.
Lucy is the daughter of Dr. Westfeldt who deals with patients with psychotic problems and thinks living with them is good therapy. Sally Nystuen Vahle is the doctor…and the patient. That patient is the bug eating straitjacketed Renfield. Watching Vahle make the sometimes instantaneous change from doctor to patient and back again is like watching the best of the classic vaudeville comedians. And when Vahle takes Dr. Westfeldt for a “spin,” well you just have to see it to appreciate it. Comedy gold.
Mina, played by Bob Hess, is the other Westfeldt daughter and to say she is not quite as beautiful as Lucy is an understatement. Think of an oversexed Shirley Temple on steroids and you may get an idea. Everything that comes out of Mina’s mouth is hysterical and Hess has a field day with the character. And, as if that wasn’t enough, after Mina is lost to the undead, Dr. Jean Van Helsing is enlisted to kill Dracula. Hess is the strait-laced and deadpan hysterical Van Helsing. He appears somewhere between Margaret Thatcher and a dour Maggie Smith. The prime of Miss Jean Helsing is not to be missed. Hess has made comedic gender bending into art.
Count Dracula, played by Captain Milbourn, is cocky, self-assured, and out for blood. Milbourn. who is marvelously limber, doesn’t so much walk as slither. There’s even a bit of Eve and the serpent as Dracula tries to seduce Lucy. Milbourn’s Dracula is all tantalizing libido luring victims with wit and sexuality. Dressed in a see through lacy black top, Milbourn’s sexually ambiguous Dracula is otherworldly sensuous, deadly serious, and deadly funny.
There is so much more to Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors than I have revealed here.There is not a minute that goes by without laughter. And that’s “biting” humor. “Stake” your claim to a ticket to this blood lust blast. Now! Before dawn! Warning: garlic and crucifixes will be confiscated at the door.
