DRACULA
Synopsis
Act I — Jonathan arrives at the Transylvanian castle and meets the count, whose graciousness soon dissolves into cruelty. Against his host’s advice, Jonathan falls asleep outside his bed chamber and thereby falls prey to the three sisters. Meanwhile, in England, Lucy tells Mina about her two marriage proposals: one from Jack, and the other from his close friend, Quincey. Mina, who has heard nothing from her beloved Jonathan, reminds Lucy that love is not quantitative. Back at the castle, Dracula saves Jonathan, and the sisters give him an enigmatic explanation of who they are and how they came to be. Their master then gives them an infant upon which to feed; the sight horrifies Jonathan. Aboard the Demeter, sailing from Russia to England, a terrified crew is picked off, one by one, until only a derelict “ghost ship” arrives at Whitby Bay.
Act II — Several threads of the plot develop in alternation. At rise, Dr. Seward and the nurse hope to subdue the maniacal Renfield by moving him to another cell. Once the doctor is gone, it is apparent that the nurse actually uses Renfield to exterminate pests in the asylum. A moment later, Dracula invites the zoophagous Renfield to smell his blood, thereby enslaving him. Elsewhere, Lucy’s gaiety has turned cold upon the withdrawal of Quincey’s proposal; stalwartly, she resigns herself to marrying Jack. Later, Mina hesitates to open the long-awaited letter from Jonathan; she fears he is breaking off their engagement. In a dreamlike state, Dracula visits her. She wakes with a shock, and opens the letter: Sister Agatha, a Hungarian nurse, explains Jonathan’s recovery from “brain fever.” Mina brings the good news to Lucy, who has just had a terse final meeting with Quincey. Dr. Van Helsing has received Jack’s letter about Renfield, and he (or she) impulsively pays a visit to his former student. Soon after, Dracula pays another visit to Renfield, who, unexpectedly and unsuccessfully, attacks his master. Dracula also visits Lucy in the night and drinks of her blood; Mina interrupts. At the asylum, Renflied uses his insight into Lucy’s deteriorating health to torment Dr. Seward. Mina enters; she has just surprised Jonathan at the train station, but has not been warmly received. Mina then visits the bedridden Lucy, who has had a psychic vision of Jonathan’s arrival at the station. At the act’s conclusion, Jack weeps beside Lucy’s lifeless body.
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Act III — Dr. Seward and Dr. Van Helsing pay a surprise visit to an inhospitable Jonathan. He is somewhat relieved, however, when Dr. Van Helsing validates his incredible experience in Transylvania. With Jonathan’s help, Dr. Van Helsing convinces Jack to visit Lucy’s tomb. At the tomb, the party finds Lucy’s coffin empty. Outside, a policeman and the groundskeeper investigate the commotion. They exit, and the search party quickly escapes. When the groundskeeper returns, he is killed by a wolf. The action ends with a newspaper clipping that explains a wolf’s mysterious escape from a nearby zoo. When the search party returns to Lucy’s tomb, they are greeted by the wolf. A gunshot silences the beast, and the sharp-shooting Quincey appears; he is quickly deputized to join the party. Soon after, appears the undead Lucy, clutching an infant as if it were a possession; Dr. Van Helsing and Jonathan impede her with mirrors. She sees Jack and attempts to seduce him. Reluctantly, Quincey shoots her, and she weakly stumbles to her burrow. Jack stoically volunteers to stake Lucy through the heart; they depart.
Act IV — Dracula visits Renfield, who is eager to redeem himself. In doing so, he abducts the nurse. The party rescues the bewildered nurse, and Jonathan realizes that Renfield’s antic has been a mere distraction; he fears for Mina. The party leaves, but Dr. Seward stays behind to find his patient. With a knife, Renfield attacks the doctor. Meanwhile, Dracula has indeed entranced Mina, but the search party intercedes before she consumes more than a drop or two of his blood. Jonathan, now certain of the count’s vengeful motives, resolves to flee. The next day, Dr. Seward recovers from his patient’s attack, but he carelessly leaves a vial of the count’s blood on a cart; through trickery, Renfield obtains it. Shortly thereafter, he falls ill and dies. The party, sans Jonathan, hunts the count's boxes of earth down; an encounter with an uppity butler demonstrates their willingness to use their wits to achieve their end. Eventually, the party must enter the abbey to destroy the last known boxes. The count greets them with a mischief of rats, but the rats flee at the command of Renfield, who has become undead himself. In a terrific duel, Dracula kills Renfield. Later, under hypnosis, Mina confirms that the wounded Dracula is in retreat to Transylvania, where his native earth can heal his wounds.
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Act V — Dracula sails back to the Russian port, and the others take the Orient Express. They reach the ship, only to learn that the box of earth is missing. They divide: Dr. Van Helsing and Mina hire a carriage; Jack and Quincey go by horseback. Jonathan unexpectedly appears; he has journeyed there of his own accord, for reasons not quite clear, even to himself. Contrary to Jonathan’s theory that the count is merely spiteful, Quincey believes the count preys upon women whose hearts have been broken. Jack concurs, and the frank discussion gives the two old friends the chance to clear the air about Lucy. Jonathan hurries to Mina. Her telepathic connection with the count is overwhelmed by the influence of the three sisters, who appear in the flesh and confiscate the carriage’s cargo. Later, Dracula entrances Mina. The three sisters appear and confront their master with mirrors. Dracula recoils, Mina flees, and Jonathan shoots Dracula. Huddled together before the rising sun, all four of the undead die a second death. Jack joins the others and explains how Quincey sacrificed his life to save Jack from a wolf’s attack. In an epilogue, the survivors tell of their good fortune: Jonathan and Mina have named their first born Quincey; Jack and his wife have three daughters; and Dr. Van Helsing is writing a book about the goings-on. The play ends with Mina’s respectful acknowledgement of the long-suffering count.
Conceived as a tragedy, Dracula combines classical theatrical conventions with romantic literary elements. Much like the tragedies of the English Renaissance, the work disregards the three unities; instead, it emphasizes the elevation of language, the five-act structure, and, of course, the development of a tragic hero. Due to the epic scope of the piece, drawn directly from Stoker’s novel, its performance would benefit greatly from the efficiency of modern staging practices.
Though the work is composed entirely in rhyming iambic heptameter, the poetic devices of eye rhyme and near rhyme mitigate the impact of the verse, which is important in a full-length piece. The rhyme becomes more noticeable during passages that are comedic or dreamlike. |
A Word from the Playwright...
"The sheer magnitude of Stoker’s original tale necessitated, for me, both subtle and significant changes. For example, I decided to heighten the romantic tension between Jonathan and Mina by keeping them separate until the play’s conclusion. Similarly, I wrote Arthur out of the piece in order to develop a strong rivalry between Lucy’s would-be suitors, Quincey and Jack, who are also close friends. Monologues addressed directly to the audience preserve Stoker’s epistolary form. In all instances, I have deliberately avoided any plot device original to previous adaptations."
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