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Jan. 4th, 2011 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsGuys, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
innerbrat and I just went to see THE BEST Dracula play! I am writing it up before I forget!
They imported an impossibly tall and skinny Dracula from Italy, and the director was clearly just like "BE AS ITALIAN AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE," which as a side effect also made him the smuggest Dracula ever as he smirked and swooshed his way around the stage, swirling his enormous billowy bat-embroidered cape and followed by an overenthusiastic smoke machine, and his wig wasn't properly tamped down so we kept staring at the dollop of prosthetic standing out on his forehead
And Jonathan Harker wore dorky sweater-vests that didn't match his cravats at all, and every time he was given a task to be remotely competent at, he failed hilariously
And Van Helsing was this amazingly deadpan guy with perfect comic timing who strode around with great confidence while various characters threw themselves at him begging to be SHOWN THE WAY
And this was one of the versions where Lucy is Mina and Mina is dead before the play even begins, but we were too busy laughing to care as much as we should
But the best, THE BEST, was Renfield. Renfield was this guy, and the actor played him as kind of a cross between Hamlet and Edward Rutledge in 1776, posing and soliloquizing in the most AMAZINGLY TERRIBLE Southern accent I have ever heard. (This in a production full of dignified gentlemen in cravats pulling off fairly credible British accents.) Renfield was clearly hired for his evil laugh, and therefore his evil laugh appeared in EVERY SCENE . . . even scenes where Renfield himself did not, in fact, appear. At one point, the whole production paused for a scene where he flies halfway down the ceiling, pauses, and then flies halfway back up, cackling maniacally the whole time. IT WAS AMAZING. (As a hilarious bonus, the program provides us with the information Renfield's actor is also the youngest son of Norman Mailer.)
Oh, and did I mention that Debi and I were sitting in the very front row?
So there comes a point towards the end when everyone's in a crypt, and the stage is dark, and the lights come up and Renfield is sitting on the stage right in front of us and cackling maniacally away. So of course, I start cracking up too . . . and then it starts to feel like he's looking at me, which only makes me laugh the harder.
The production finishes up, the music from Swan Lake starts blasting (SWAN LAKE!) and I turn to Debi. "Hah, wasn't it funny how it looked like Renfield was looking at us during that cackling bit?" I say, fully prepared to believe that everyone sitting in our general section felt like he was looking right at them.
"Us? Dude," Debi says, "he was staring right at you. I think you threw the poor man off his cackle."
I OFFICIALLY OUT-CREEPED RENFIELD. *___* BEST PLAY EVER.
innerbrat and I just went to see THE BEST Dracula play! I am writing it up before I forget!They imported an impossibly tall and skinny Dracula from Italy, and the director was clearly just like "BE AS ITALIAN AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE," which as a side effect also made him the smuggest Dracula ever as he smirked and swooshed his way around the stage, swirling his enormous billowy bat-embroidered cape and followed by an overenthusiastic smoke machine, and his wig wasn't properly tamped down so we kept staring at the dollop of prosthetic standing out on his forehead
And Jonathan Harker wore dorky sweater-vests that didn't match his cravats at all, and every time he was given a task to be remotely competent at, he failed hilariously
And Van Helsing was this amazingly deadpan guy with perfect comic timing who strode around with great confidence while various characters threw themselves at him begging to be SHOWN THE WAY
And this was one of the versions where Lucy is Mina and Mina is dead before the play even begins, but we were too busy laughing to care as much as we should
But the best, THE BEST, was Renfield. Renfield was this guy, and the actor played him as kind of a cross between Hamlet and Edward Rutledge in 1776, posing and soliloquizing in the most AMAZINGLY TERRIBLE Southern accent I have ever heard. (This in a production full of dignified gentlemen in cravats pulling off fairly credible British accents.) Renfield was clearly hired for his evil laugh, and therefore his evil laugh appeared in EVERY SCENE . . . even scenes where Renfield himself did not, in fact, appear. At one point, the whole production paused for a scene where he flies halfway down the ceiling, pauses, and then flies halfway back up, cackling maniacally the whole time. IT WAS AMAZING. (As a hilarious bonus, the program provides us with the information Renfield's actor is also the youngest son of Norman Mailer.)
Oh, and did I mention that Debi and I were sitting in the very front row?
So there comes a point towards the end when everyone's in a crypt, and the stage is dark, and the lights come up and Renfield is sitting on the stage right in front of us and cackling maniacally away. So of course, I start cracking up too . . . and then it starts to feel like he's looking at me, which only makes me laugh the harder.
The production finishes up, the music from Swan Lake starts blasting (SWAN LAKE!) and I turn to Debi. "Hah, wasn't it funny how it looked like Renfield was looking at us during that cackling bit?" I say, fully prepared to believe that everyone sitting in our general section felt like he was looking right at them.
"Us? Dude," Debi says, "he was staring right at you. I think you threw the poor man off his cackle."
I OFFICIALLY OUT-CREEPED RENFIELD. *___* BEST PLAY EVER.
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no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 04:01 am (UTC)...
*_________* AWESOME
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Date: 2011-01-05 04:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 04:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 04:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 05:06 am (UTC)This is a strange and wonderful gift and it must be used wisely.
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Date: 2011-01-05 05:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 05:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 05:43 am (UTC)Did I tell you that my favourite favourite in love forever actually lesbian Takarazuka actresses are doing Dracula in Japan with the ex-otokoyaku as Dracula and it's going to be HOMG AMAZING?
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Date: 2011-01-05 05:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 05:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 05:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 06:11 am (UTC)And who wouldn't be in love with this Dracula?
I am totally in love with this Dracula.
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Date: 2011-01-05 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 05:47 am (UTC)You need a BADGE or something!
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Date: 2011-01-05 05:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 05:56 am (UTC)If there is an evil laugh involved, obviously it was awesome. I had to learn the art of it, and I got massive laughs for it. Love evil laughs.
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Date: 2011-01-05 05:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 06:41 am (UTC)and also The Witch from Into the Woods.
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Date: 2011-01-05 02:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 08:42 am (UTC)I'll have you know I was cackling madly while reading, from about the point of "smuggest Dracula ever as he smirked and swooshed [...] around the stage" until the very end.
:D
I am experiencing so much envy right now. That sounds like it was a blast!
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Date: 2011-01-05 02:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 12:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 02:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 12:54 pm (UTC)It sounds amazing. I am jealous.
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Date: 2011-01-05 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 03:07 pm (UTC)I remember a production of Macbeth that marketed itself with like, "Politics, Murder, Conspiracy, Revenge . . . DC 1996? NO! Scotland 1296" or whenever.
I guess it works? As a marketing stategy?
(I just don't remember the part where Dracula WAS Italian . . .)
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Date: 2011-01-05 03:19 pm (UTC)(I guess it was too much effort for them to import an actual Transylvanian? Americans can' tell the difference, right?)
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Date: 2011-01-05 03:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 04:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 03:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 04:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 04:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 04:27 pm (UTC)(We're pretty sure he must have talked the producers into buying the flying equipment himself. Because it was only used for that one scene. NEVER AGAIN.)
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Date: 2011-01-05 04:36 pm (UTC)(...that does seem like rather a waste of flying equipment, considering they are putting on a story about a vampire)
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Date: 2011-01-05 04:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 04:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 06:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 06:30 pm (UTC)AHAHAHA WHAT
I LOVE IT
I've seen a stage production of Dracula once before that was actually quite serious and dramatic and good. BUT I THINK I'D ENJOY THIS ONE MORE. *__*
(Renfield's pretty cute in that picture. WHAT. My brain hurts.)
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Date: 2011-01-05 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-03-24 04:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-24 06:08 pm (UTC)