Photo credit: Hannah Phillips[/caption]Dracula, the OHS theatre department’s latest offering, is incredible. Not only is the acting great, with some stand-out performances by minor characters, but the sets may be the most intricately designed of any OHS production. The show was performed on October 31 at 7 pm, November 1 at 4:45 pm, November 2 at 7 pm, and November 3 at 2 pm in the auditorium.
The Bram Stoker novel was adapted for stage by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston. The script, written in 1924, has stood the test of time. It is still as chilling as it was nearly a century ago. The brilliant acting by OHS students is probably a major reason why the play was so good. Jonathan Harker (Robert Piscitelli), Dr. Seward (Maggie Cummings), Lucy Seward (Erin Burgner), and Abraham Van Helsing (Luke Taylor) are the characters with the most screentime. The actors portray the serious characters well. Count Dracula (Taylor McNeill), the title character, gets slightly less screentime. McNeill gives Dracula a thick accent so people in the audience might have trouble understanding his lines, but his acting is creepy enough that it rarely matters.
Audience members will probably leave the auditorium remembering some of the minor characters, however. From the ever-vigilant maid Miss Wells (Sydney DeFranco), who even cleans the stage during intermission, to the insane patient R.M. Renfield (Nicky Vassello), the actors’ performances are perfect. Some of the loudest laughs came when Miss Bitters (Sarah Leverette) and Buttersworth (Aaron Summey) were on stage.
Dracula starts with Van Helsing arriving at a sanitorium. Dr. Seward needs his help diagnosing Lucy Seward, her daughter. Van Helsing quickly realizes that Lucy doesn’t have anemia, like her mother suggests at first, but something much more deadly. He mentions that she may have been bitten by a vampire, because that is the only thing that could cause all of her symptoms, and she and Harker don’t believe him. They are both convinced after he explains more about vampires, and they decide to kill the vampire who is feeding on Lucy.
The sets are beautifully designed. From the photos on the mantlepiece to the coffin Count Dracula sleeps in, it’s obvious that director Jared Taylor and the rest of the crew put a lot of thought and time into their work. Taylor gave the Den Echoes a behind-the-scenes look at the set, pointing out a few highlights. Audience members may have noticed a photo on the mantlepiece of Mina, the woman Dracula fed on before Lucy. This was actually a picture of Lucy from Dracula, the movie released in 1931. Taylor mentioned in his director’s notes that he was “watching the 1931 Bela Lugosi Dracula film for the first time” when he first became interested in horror films.
Some other points of interest that people may not have noticed from the audience are that most of the books on the bookcase are collections of high school plays, the angel statue above the entrance to the sanitorium is a reference to the weeping angels in Doctor Who, and one of the paintings on the wall was also in one of the Twilight films. Taylor said that the sets took two weeks to build, and students in all of his classes helped make it.
Lastly, people who saw Dracula probably remember the blood-curdling scream near the end of the second act. Vassello, playing R.M. Renfield, produced this ear-splitting noise. “We were all honestly scared,” Cummings remarked. Depending on what day people came to the show, the scream may have been just slightly deafening or completely deafening. This is thanks to Jay Huskins, one of the managers working in the tech booth. He decided not to mute Vassello’s mic on Saturday and Sunday to scare audience members more. That scream was probably the most memorable part of a very interesting, scary play. DeFranco said that the cast “put a lot of hard work into [the play], and I think it paid off.” Sarah Oechsle, who came to see the play multiple times, commented, “It was [darn] good.” Both statements are completely correct.
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