Pity, at least a little, those dead authors whose copyrights have expired over time, making them fair game (or carrion) for folks who specialize in revivification, be it Kate Hamill (whose redo of Austen’s “Emma” will soon grace Norfolk’s Wells Theatre and whose own redo of “Dracula” was onstage there this time last year. Now, greeting Candy Corn Month, comes an even sillier rewrite called “Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors,” the title a quick random poke at Shakespeare’s “A Comedy of Errors,” as well as a rehash (sort of) of Bram Stoker’s original horror thriller, “Dracula,” 1897.
The cheeky adapters this time are Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen, who give us a sexed-up Count D in tight leather pants and yet another female Dr. Van Helsing (this time rendered by the beauteous — sort of — Matthew Hipkins, a man pretending to be not one but two women). (Trust me and just go with the peculiar casting.)
This new bit of battiness is taking place at Peninsula Community Theatre and relies on an array of silly in- (and out-) jokes delivered by rapidly role- (and gender-) switching actors who can go, for example, from pater familias Dr. Westfeldt to mad bug-eater Renfield with a turn of the back and the donning of a fright wig. Mark Glickstein performs this miracle almost nightly.
It’s time to get down with the count.
“Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors,” directed by PCT pillar Al Buchanan, stars Lawrence Nichols as the oily but sexy Drac. As the title star, he had to learn only one part, but a spare cast of five others play 10-plus parts, aided by occasional visits from Kristina Wayne, onstage as the gravedigger and visible aloft as the Foley artist. (For those of you who leave during movie credits, Foley artists create canned sound effects.)
Here’s how the troupe breaks down into silly folks: Matt Haley plays overly mild-mannered (read “wimpy”) Jonathan Harker, plus a bosun who drowns, and three other silly suitors of lovely Lucy, two of whom are puppets he manipulates. (Cost-saving, one assumes.) Their names are Lord Cavendish, Lord Worthington and Lord Havemercy. Glickstein, as mentioned, does buggy Renfield and Daddy Westfeldt (who’s a chauvinist pig of the type we feminists used to grill and eat back at Wellesley College). Lizzy Mathes does an excellent feministic Lucy, Westfeldt’s beautiful, desirable daughter, and doubles as Kitty, the kleptomaniacal servant, and a carriage driver. That leaves Hipkins to play Mina (Lucy’s less desirable sister — perhaps because she sports a beard and mustache — and Dr. Van Helsing, an imported German expert on all things vampiric. (Despite his/her expertise, it takes the whole lot of them 66 pages of script and well over an hour’s stage time to figure out that Count Dracula is indeed the vampire causing their nocturnal health issues. (Even dim Dr. Westfeldt notes, “I can’t believe how long it took us to figure that out.”)
Besides the obvious and manic role-doubling and instant switching, what’s fun about this show is catching the in- (and out-) jokes. Some are based on obvious warping of the timeline. We’re repeatedly assured it’s 1897ish, but we get lines such as Dracula’s “Alexa, turn down the music” and a list of culinary characteristics of Dracula’s babka cake (brought for Lucy and Jonathan’s betrothal party). Says Drac, it’s guaranteed to be “gluten-free, cruelty-free, vegan, non-GMO and certified organic.” Who says vampires are hopeless narcissists? They’re also, I might point out, bat- and- wolf-friendly.
Literary and pop cultural in-jokes include the name of the ill-fated ship that brought Dracula to England (the “SS Stoker”). Few laughs were heard for that one. (I guess you need to be pre-stoked, a true Bram Fan.) Jonathan Harker rushes offstage to meet his cousins Mary and Shelley (a few more laughs for that one. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, of course, wrote “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus,” in 1818). Everyone guffawed when Jonathan cried out “I love Lucy,” his timing and delivery perfect tip-offs that he alluded to both Lucille Ball and his heartthrob Lucy Westfeldt. For German-speakers, there are embedded German jokes and allusions such as Van Helsing’s place of employment: the University of Schmutz. (Schmutz means “dirt” in German.)
All of the yucks above were successfully delivered and enjoyed. One comic device that didn’t land so well was the doubled character Dr. Van Helsing. A traditionally male character (in Stoker), Van Helsing is here, as noted, supposed to be a female. Hipkins plays Van Helsing, but with his own masculine voice, plus a Williamsburg-like Colonial costume with pants. Perhaps a dress would have better conveyed the built-in joke of a male actor’s playing a woman whose character was originally conceived of as a man (!). But Hipkins’ role as Mina, in a dress and with a falsetto except for one intentionally funny slip, worked fine, even with his facial hair.
This play succeeds overall because of skillful acting, quick pacing and a convincing touch of real horror amid the hilarity. And that’s not easy for a community theater production to achieve. It’s amazing what you can do with fog in a spray can.
This leads me to say, in memory of Bob (I hope you get this):
“Fangs for the Memories, PCT.”
Page Laws is dean emerita of the Nusbaum Honors College at Norfolk State University. prlaws@aya.yale.edu
If you go
When: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays through Oct. 19
Where: 10251 Warwick Blvd., Newport News
Tickets: Start at $22; discounts available