  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Review Dracula was the product of the vision of one man. Watching the production, I could sense what Director Bernard Godwin had imagined for his show and how his ideas had become a reality. Dark minimalist two-tier stage, smoke machine, eerie music, carefully-placed lighting, and a judiciously selected cast – they were all there to provide a stunning professional rendition of Dracula. Bernard had crafted a memorable evening, having his audience of the edge of their seats, gripped by the story of the human fight against the greatest vampire of all time. He ensured that he steered the cast away from cheesy performances and from over the top shock thriller to give the audience a fine drama. Craig McEwan was perfectly cast as the Count, equipped with a well-delivered Eastern European accent and a haunting and terrifying look. Newcomer Martin Smith matched Craig with a wonderful sustained accent and a marvellous portrayal of earnest doctor and physician Van Helsing. He managed to play the part with determined passion but also with a sense of humour, which the audience relished given the dark material of the show. The two female leads, Lucy Gray as Lucy and Jane Smith as Mina, convinced as Dracula’s victims, Lucy providing a truly blood-curdling scream, arm outstretched from the coffin. Jane, also new to the Players, evoked the concern of the audience as she tried to avoid becoming the next victim of the Count. Nick Comlay and Aidan Godwin provided solid support to the leads, with Aidan showing some quality acting when as Arthur he breaks as he sees his fiancée lost forever. Kester Lindley, as Jonathan Harker, coped admirably with the mix of styles required of him: part dialogue and part commentary, not an easy task to evoke but he managed to switch seamlessly from one to other with great ease. A variety of characters were portrayed by Sian Kenyon, Jacqueline Feeney, Anna Blum and Jonathan Murray, the latter finding his forte as one of the mysterious voices, which chanted hauntingly throughout the play. For me, the performance of the show went to Chris Robertson, who embraced the part of the lunatic Renfield with great gusto. He was so believable (even too believable) as the manic maniac in his delivery of the character, sometimes desperate, sometimes childlike, sometimes aggressive and sometimes whining. Coupled with his spoken portrayal, every move he made, whether scrunched in the corner of the set or hobbling across the stage endorsed the nature of Renfield. A great achievement and in danger of being Dracula’s next victim for trying to upstage the count himself. For the evening, the hall was well and truly transformed with its simple set, cleverly built by Nigel Gray, Gordon Thomson and their team. Occasionally the carefully-placed spotlights did not always hit the characters square on and meant that the action was unintentionally in the shadows but that did not distract from the use of light, dark and greys, combined with the wisps of mist billowing across the set. I was very impressed with the move from scene to scene, using the split stage and using parts of the stage for different scenes, as well as the use of technical innovations, such as the coffin slowly wheeled onto the centre of the stage. Bernard Godwin had a vision that he wanted to bring to the world a haunting evocative classic drama where the use of sound, light and simple staging provided strong support to a well-written script, professionally delivered and brilliantly acted by his stars. I am here to tell you that he succeeded. David Ashton
More Photos (click to enlarge)
Contact email address: DAshtn5@aol.com. BOX OFFICE: 07535 925268 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
