District Fray: Bram Stoker’s deathless 1897 vampire tale gets a unique revival October 13 through November 6 at National Landing courtesy of Synetic Theater, a unique company formed by the husband and wife team of Paata and Irina Tsikurishvili. This iteration of “Dracula,” directed by Paata Tsikurishvili, first appeared in 2005, returned in 2009, and is now back for its spookiest run yet at Synetic’s home base.
4 comments:
I really like the original Dracula text. We have become so inundated with vampire content over the years that I feel most people don’t know what makes Bram Stoker’s novel stand out, but it holds up as an unsettling text that is equally terrifying and impossible to put down. It’s exciting that its getting a new life in this production. When you have classic texts like this, a remount who to surmount the original text but also the history of the work that has accrued since its release. In this case, an audience member is going to walk into the space with their own preconceived notions about vampires and whatever they know of Dracula specifically. A good adaption will challenge those notions while also delivering on the promises implied by performing a classic. The production should be recognizable while feeling fresh. I hope this production can deliver. I don’t know the play’s script but I find it interesting they went with a minimal set when the story spans so many different settings. Hopefully they can convey these locations well.
Being someone who is obsessed with Halloween and plan things months before October, the story of Dracula has always interested in me of what inspired the author in writing this story in the first place. The story is truly magical and have inspired many people around the globe to create stories around and similar to it. It is also really fascinating in how this story has been a popular and well-known story across the world. Personally, this production interest me in a great extent, I would defiantly watch and learn more about it. Also the idea of bring a relatively old production back on stage makes me wonder if there would be any changes or parts that would be using the modern day technology and how they would be used in this production. It is also interesting in how the director talked about the background story of this production and make me wonder if there is anything that will be changed for better presentation on stage.
I love synthetic theater! I feel like hearing they are doing Dracula makes complete sense to me, given their history of converting older texts into modern, sometimes wordless performances. I wish they were doing it for more than one night, so I could go see it; however, I think the idea of limited performances always adds extra magic to them. I think it is fantastic that this theater is engaging with a holiday that the community around them will be celebrating by celebrating it with them in this way. This is one of the best ways to bring audiences into the theater and make it feel accessible. The only thing I think that could make this better for me would be adding an immersive element for the audience because everyone wears a Halloween costume and incorporating that into the performance.
It’s really nice to hear that smaller theatres like Synetic are being able to recover from the pandemic and finally entertain live theatre again. I also love that they’re doing seasonal-ish themes of Dracula and Halloween. I have yet to meet a “theatre person” who doesn’t like Halloween and I think that’s because the idea of dawning a costume and becoming someone else is a very normal concept in theatre in general so it’s like another excuse to do it some more. It’s also nice to hear that Synetic makes it a “family fun” situation because it’s always nice when a more horror-ish type of show can still be accessible to a younger audience as I think sometimes as theatre designers we get into how to make something as dark and gory as possible (sometimes) and can move away from “family friendly” shows.
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