Dracula, the Undead Novel

It is probably a little early in the season to talk of the Undead. But the play based on Bram Stoker's immortal novel is already in full swing at the Lyric Hammersmith (11 September to 11 October, written by Moreen Lloyd Malcolm and directed by Emma Baggott). A by-line on the Lyric H site reads "In this major new adaption of Bram Stoker's horror classic, Moreen Lloyd Malcolm uncovers the female voice at the heart of the tale". Interesting because essentially, the work is all about the significance of the voice. The action opens through the medium of Jonathan Harker's diary, and is continued later on by the correspondence of the other characters. Later on again, under the agency of Van Helsing, the diaries are recorded on that hot-tip technology of the time, the phonograph and its wax cylinders - jee-buzz! The first time I read it, the novel puzzled me, it coming across as a rather confused mish-mash of events outlined by a knot of middle-aged, rather egotistical males, the only real action coming from Jonathan's diary. But he too is male, commenting on feminine frailty and vapidity, while seeming in fear of the overtly sexual women he encounters at the Transylvanian castle. Seriously, what is it about this novel that, more than 100 years following its publication, has made it spawn more vampires than were ever put to rest with wooden stakes? I mean, there are hardly enough trees in the universe to finish them off. However, subsequent readings have revealed other strands, among them a Victorian parable on the role of women. Lucy Westenra and Mina Murray are not the feisty, self-determining gothic heroines of eighteenth-century literature but the rather vapid parlour creatures of nineteenth-century ordinance. One woman falls victim to vampirism, and the other almost sucumbs to the same fate until she is rescued by the men in the tale. But there is much to admire in the book, not least Jonathan's lush views of Eastern Europe, and the sublime Van Helsing and his pathology of the vampire. Right now, in advance of going to the play, I am restless as a werewolf at full moon....ooooow! Needless to say, I am a fan of the vintage movie (Dracula, Tod Browning, Karl Freund, 1931) just dissolving with delight when the wonderful, evergreen Bela Lugosi waxes lyrical about his children of the night. How the play lives up, I have yet to find out. Watch this space. https://lyric.co.uk/shows/dracula/