Dracula: the Untold Story

So, myself and friend Dave (incidentally do check out Dave’s fantastic art on his Instagram page) found ourselves travelling to Manchester, to the Lowry, to watch the stage show Dracula: the Untold Story. Directed by Andrew Quick, Pete Brooks and Simon Wainwright, and a co-production of Imitating The Dog and Leeds Playhouse, this was a fascinating continuation of the Dracula story – focused on Mina Harker (Riana Duce).

The year is 1965 – 70 years after the destruction of Dracula, in this world taken as historical fact and the radio we hear at the head of the play indicates this is an alternate world to ours – similar but not the same (and this is story important). A woman, who claims to be Mina (though she appears way too young) has come to a London police station to offer information about a murder victim, found decapitated that day.

Riana Duce as Mina

Its late on New Year’s Eve and WPC Williams (Adela Rajnović) and DS Donaldson (Matt Prendergast) perhaps would rather be elsewhere – especially when Mina, reluctant to speak at first it seems, suggests who she is and confesses to the murder. Donaldson, whilst believing Dracula was an actual person, does not believe in the supernatural elements of the original story and thinks Mina delusional. However, Mina knows details of the murder not made public and they listen to her story.

Dracula's presence

It is a story of Mina – how it was her, and not Jonathan, who killed Dracula, how she absconded from Jonathan and Quincey when she realises that being forced to drink from Dracula has changed her. She doesn’t age, she heals wounds, and she dreams – she dreams of an event called the Rising, an apocalypse that Dracula will bring about and of men (always men, she acknowledges) whose actions will hasten it – men she kills through the years, changing history (hence this being an alternative world to ours). Because of this Dracula himself is a fleeting presence in the play and yet is always there, behind every aspect of the story, an amorphous presence almost.

Graphic novel-like

The play takes on the quality of a graphic novel – using technology to merge backdrop with the actors and using digital manipulation to change the projected actors (who act sometimes to one of three on stage camera and at other times more traditionally) which might make a projection of Matt Prendergast, for example, seem to be Stalin (with Rajnović and Prendergast becoming several characters each) or might make the projected image look drawn on a page. It is incredibly clever, and whilst the digital manipulation isn’t always perfect it is absorbing. There are nods throughout to other vehicles, most notably Dracula (1931) and Dracula (1992).

stage craft

The actors’ dialogue is in a variety of languages and, at the play, we probably made a mistake being front row as some of the dialogue (projected onto the screen, graphic novel style, in English) could be obscured by the onstage cameras from our vantage point. The play is available to watch online (via VoD) and I thought this might have been easier but the angles chosen by the director, which concentrates on the actor’s art as much as the backdrop, conspire to make it not so – but never you worry, the closed captions translate non-English dialogue.

The play’s homepage is here, which links to the VoD that is available for rental (for a 24-hour period once you press play) and will be available until 31 January 2022.