Files

Download

Download Full Text (1.1 MB)

Description

Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, DRACULA, while not the first was surely the most popular and enduring of the gothic novels which has drawn upon the tireless "blood" of the centuries old legend of the vampire. Stoker, a Dublin-born journeyman writer who was manager of Sir Henry Irving's Lyceum Theater in London and later Irving's biographer never again-if you will pardon the inevitable word play here-struck a literary vein so rich, nor did he survive to see the various proliferating "spinoffs" and "rip-offs" of his famous novel in print, on the stage, and on film.

The best known and most straight-laced stage version is the Balderston-Deane adaptation of 1927 which introduced Bela Lugosi as an international celebrity and the 1931 film which assured the Hungarian actor of a lucrative Hollywood career, while. giving a whole new meaning to theatrical "immortality." The same script offered American actor Frank Langella a most successful vehicle only three years ago.

But this evenings entertainment is a lesser known and much looser reworking and it is decidedly not designed for Bram Stoker purists. What it aims to recreate is the Victorian equivalent of the "B'' horror movie of the 30's and 40's, repeat with guaranteed thrills and chills in the predictable grand manner and-for the faint of heart-reassuring doses of romance and "comic relief."

Any and all of the fond and familiar Stock characters, situations and assorted melodramatic outrages reconstructed by our author and our cast and crew on behalf of your unadulterated enjoyment are gleefully perpetrated with malice aforethought and no apologies whatever. (And any we may have inadvertently omitted are purely coincidental.) HAVE FUN IF YOU DARE!

Publication Date

11-1980

Language

English

City

Philadelphia

Keywords

The Masque

Disciplines

Theatre and Performance Studies

Rights Statement

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Count Dracula

Share

COinS