Jesmond
Adapted by Jane Thornton and John Godber. Arrangement with Josef Weinberger LTD
31 October 2017
Back in time for a Halloween extravaganza is this classic play based on the book of the same name. It was nice to see virtually a full house for this intriguing performance.
The set was quite minimal, but nicely constructed for the initial scenes in Castle Count Dracula. I swore I saw Rafael Benitez (The Newcastle United manager), in the front row, or was it Dracula playing tricks?)
Starting promptly, We are greeted with an introduction of various voices warning our focused character not to go to Castle Dracula.The various voices mix well to create the opening eeriness and setting the scene of what was to come. Lights flash two characters, Jonathan Harker a solicitor send out to aide Dracula in his purchase of property in England. Characters narrating monologues is a common way to push this story forward, starting with Jonathan telling of how he got to be in Transylvania in the first place.
The introduction of the count is quite unnerving, having the needed creepy and unsettling, but imposing presence for the prince of darkness. Fortunately no dodgy accents from the count, only a quite good dutch one from the counts nemesis doctor Van Helsing. Several days go by in the castle with just interactions between the count and Jonathan, as an initial two header with Jonathan becoming increasingly more disturbed by his predicament and more suspicious of his-the counts, intentions. The sound and light effects are sparse, but effective. Trap doors revealing new parts of the set and various new parts are wheeled in seamlessly when needed.
There is quite a large cast and often the cast enter from the back of the stage, or just happily unsettling the audience nicely. The story moves on from Transylvania Romania to Whitby England. The count has now entered the country and seeks to cause havoc in a new land in the search for more victims and converts to the undead. A lot of the action is left to our imagination, with the narration from the characters filling in some blanks of location. One of the stand out performances was from the resident asylum madman, whose hobbies include collecting flies and feeding them to spiders. He had a distinct cackle, reminding me of Batman character The Joker. The acting overall was quite strong for such a production, I especially liked Van Helsing and his development into a vampire hunter, very much looking the part with his leathers and walking stick. The temptress looked the part, the period costumes of all the cast did well to bring us into this dark world and complimented the set accordingly.
There were only a few noticeable errors and the chemistry of the cast was quite good, the source material is used well throughout. There can be parts where large chunks of dialogue are fired at us in quick succession, but you get used to it. A nice touch in the interval was the spooky music playing as we waited. The story leads us to our conclusion with the gang in Transylvania for the final battle, which is quite a fun and impressive fight scene.
Overall I was surprised how modern it felt considering the material. A fun seasonal treat for all the family.
Playing until 4 Nov
Frank Cromartie Murphy
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