By Zack Anchors
Staff Writer

Like Frankenstein and other great gothic tales of terror, the story of Dracula can seem these days to belong more to the genre of comic than horror. When the Count comes to mind he often brings with him such pop cultural baggage as Sesame Street’s Count Von Count, those wax vampire teeth seen every Halloween, and a range of B-movies from “Billy the Kid vs. Dracula” to the classic “Blacula.”

But at the core of the story of Dracula, as first told by the Irish novelist Bram Stoker in 1897, are some underlying themes that are spine-tingling alone, even without all the blood-sucking gore that goes along with them.
The Portland Players, in their production of a stage adaptation of the novel called “The Passion of Dracula,” have not shied away from the dark nature of the story. They have even given the tale an unusual twist that brings to the forefront some of its more depraved elements.

Instead of casting Dracula as a Count they have created a Countess—a female vampire played by Alexandra Christie. Instead of the story of an evil and wicked old man preying on beautiful young women, seducing them and ultimately violating them in the most extreme way by sucking blood from their flesh, we have the opposite scenario. And it is fun to see the major male figures of the play, who start off clearly in charge and full of machismo, reduced to bystanders as the women fight a battle of good and evil over the fate of William Murray (played by Shawn Reardon), the attractive young man who has been chosen by Countess Dracula as her eternal mate.

The play takes place in the English countryside, at the home of Murray’s uncle Dr. Cedric Seward (played by Garvey MacLean), an old doctor who presides over a mental institution. The play begins with Murray in the midst of a mysterious illness and several local maidens victim to gory and enigmatic deaths. Three wonderfully strong female characters soon enter the scene in the Players version–a rare disease doctor, a journalist, and a professor.

The journalist Joanna Harker (played by Alanah Lockwood), sent to report on the suspicious events surrounding the sanitarium, wastes no time in going after what she really seems interested in–seducing the delirious Murray. But while Harker and Murray engage in a sophisticated game of seduction, the Countess pursues her prey with more aggression.

One of the most interesting and disturbing aspects of the story is the way that violence and sexual desire become intertwined in Dracula’s demented world. This makes for some sexy scenes for the Players, with Christie, as Dracula, seeming to hunt for flesh in more than one way. Once infected with vampire blood, the same condition sets in for some of the other less fortunate characters. In one of the most powerful scenes, a female protagonist returns from the dead to seek out her former lover. Whereas before they had a lovely and normal romance, now she sees him as a body to be consumed, and she viscously latches on to his neck like a wild beast.

The Portland Players are in their 76th season of theatre, and they have built up some impressive resources for a community run operation. The set, lighting, costumes all seem very professionally done, which goes a long way for a play that’s meant to elicit fear from it’s audience.

As the lights dim, merging to a red tint, and the wolves begin to howl in the background, the stage is set for Dracula to enter.