Preview 2004-2005: The Vampires Dance Again
Among the first was an unauthorized German silent film version, Nosferatu 1922, which was remade in 1979. In 1924, a stage adaptation by Hamilton Deane began touring the English provinces. Rewritten by John L. Balderston, the play was a big hit on Broadway in 1927, with Bela Lugosi putting a stamp on the title role that remains to this day. Lugosi starred in Todd Browning's celebrated 1931 film version of the play, but there have been countless other movies, including several from England's Hammer Studios; Francis Ford Coppola's version 1992; Dracula's Daughter; Blacula; and spoofs like Love at First Bite and Dracula: Dead and Loving It.
With the help of sets and costumes by Edward Gorey, the Deane-Balderston play became a Broadway smash once again in 1977, with Frank Langella in the title role, followed by Raul Julia, Jeremy Brett, Jean LeClerc, David Dukes, and Terence Stamp. Langella starred in yet another film version, and capitalizing on the Broadway success was another stage adaptation of Stoker, The Passion of Dracula, which ran off-Broadway from 1977 to 1979.
There have been a number of European musical versions and operas, as well as a chamber musical seen at Canada's Stratford Festival in 1999 that was also telecast. But it does not appear that Broadway has ever had a significant musical version of the Stoker novel until now. And it's not surprising that its composer is Frank Wildhorn, returning to Broadway for the first time since The Civil War 1999. Like Wildhorn's most internationally celebrated piece, Jekyll & Hyde, Dracula is a Gothic, romantic horror tale based on a much-filmed and very famous property. The success of the musical Phantom of the Opera no doubt continues to inspire such projects, and, even more than Jekyll or another Wildhorn character, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Dracula brings to Broadway a title character with whom everyone is familiar.
The book and lyrics for Broadway's new Dracula are the work of Don Black and Christopher Hampton, who previously collaborated with Andrew Lloyd Webber on Sunset Boulevard. Black is currently represented on Broadway by the vacuous lyrics for Bombay Dreams. His other Broadway credits include Merlin and The Little Prince and the Aviator, while his London shows include Bar Mitzvah Boy, Budgie, Billy, Romeo and Juliet, Song and Dance, and Aspects of Love, the latter two also imported to Broadway.
The Wildhorn-Black-Hampton Dracula had its world premiere in October, 2001 at the La Jolla Playhouse. It was announced for Broadway in the same season, with the Broadway Theatre mentioned as a possible home. Instead, the piece has languished for three years, but it's now set to begin previews later this month and open on August 16 at the Belasco Theatre. Wildhorn's most recent new stage musical, Camille Claudel, played last summer at Goodspeed, and will reappear at this fall's National Alliance for Musical Theatre's Festival of New Musicals.
Repeating the title role that he took at La Jolla will be Tom Hewitt, who was nominated for a Tony for his performance as another Transylvanian refugee, Frank 'n' Furter, in the revival of The Rocky Horror Show. La Jolla's leading ladies have been replaced by bigger names, with Kelli O'Hara playing Lucy Westenra and Melissa Errico in the female lead of Mina Murray.
Continuing as director of this Dracula is Des McAnuff, whose Broadway musicals include Big River, Tommy, and How to Succeed.... McAnuff previously worked with Errico when he took over without credit the staging of High Society from Christopher Renshaw. The La Jolla production was something of a spectacle, with Dracula seen rotating in mid-air and disappearing into the pit.
From Professor Van Helsing to Jonathan Harker, Seward, and Renfield, all of the Stoker characters familiar from other versions are present. Apparently more faithful to Stoker than the Deane-Balderston play and Lugosi film, this Dracula gives Lucy three young suitors who join Van Helsing in his pursuit of the Count.
Dracula will be the first Wildhorn musical to open on Broadway without benefit of a pre-production concept album featuring Linda Eder. But then Dracula has a somewhat uncharacteristic Wildhorn score. There are no big pop anthems and few breakout songs. Instead, the score features shorter melodic pieces, and, at least at La Jolla, there were no interruptions for applause, with one number flowing into the next. Mina had a solo, "The Heart Is Slow to Learn," that was once the title of a Black-Lloyd Webber song written for the abandoned Phantom sequel.
The reviews that greeted the La Jolla production were not the sort that guarantee a warm New York welcome. In The L.A. Times, Michael Phillips felt that "the ultra-familiar story never opens up into a realm of satisfying musical escapism, or even satisfying schlock" and that "all the visual sleight-of-hand can't make up for a largely unremarkable score." Variety's critic wrote, "Audiences won't exit the theatre remembering the melodies, which go in one ear and out the other, but they will leave happily humming the scenery." In The Orange County Register, Paul Hodgins noted "a score that's surprisingly sophisticated," but also that "there's little the actors can do to blunt the script's purpleness or overfamiliarity...nothing can shake the feeling that the Count is best left in his coffin." And Anne Marie Welsh concluded her San Diego Union-Tribune review by asking, "Who needs it?"
In the three years since those reviews were written, this Dracula has, of course, undergone revision. But then Wildhorn shows have never depended for their sustenance on rave reviews. And while it's true that none of Wildhorn's three Broadway titles made money during their New York runs, Jekyll & Hyde continues to have a healthy life around the world, where his Dracula could very well find a lively existence.
It's necessary, of course, to bring up Broadway's last bloodsucker, Dance of the Vampires, a disaster of major proportions, and one to which Dracula's Don Black contributed a lyric. But where Dance was a tongue-in-cheek effort, this Dracula appears to be entirely straightforward and serious.
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During the summer, this column will appear three times a week.