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lederhosenRey and I went to the theatre last night, and saw an amateur production of 'Dracula'. (The version where Lucy lives and Mina dies, if any of you are familiar with that one. And even if you're not.)
A few observations:
- Hearing Lucy's heartbeat as she sleeps and Dracula approaches: potentially, v. dramatic.
- Using a heartbeat sound effect that sounds like two coconut shells clopping together: not quite so much. I was beginning to wonder if maybe Dracula was on horseback.
- Heroes really are thick. Thick thick thickity thick.
- If you want to focus your audience's attention on Dracula's coffin, you can make it a great big thing in the centre of a mostly-bare stage.
- If you want them to empathise with the frustration of Harker, Seward and Van Helsing as they desperately try to save Lucy's soul, you can present a drawn-out scene where they search desperately for Dracula's coffin in a secret room under Carfax.
- You should probably not try to do both of those things at once. Seriously, when our heroes chased Renfield all the way around the coffin and STILL couldn't find it, I began to think they must have been blinded by the smoke machine.
It had its points, and some of the actors were quite good, but overall... hmm. I'm not sure I'd like to be staging that one with a limited cast and budget; there's an awful lot of "By the way, in between this scene and the previous one, we went off and staked Mina, just so you know". (I'm not sure how much of this is intrinsic to the original Mina-dies version and how much was this particular production.)
Ah well. I got to snuggle my wife in the dark, so it wasn't all bad :-)
A few observations:
- Hearing Lucy's heartbeat as she sleeps and Dracula approaches: potentially, v. dramatic.
- Using a heartbeat sound effect that sounds like two coconut shells clopping together: not quite so much. I was beginning to wonder if maybe Dracula was on horseback.
- Heroes really are thick. Thick thick thickity thick.
- If you want to focus your audience's attention on Dracula's coffin, you can make it a great big thing in the centre of a mostly-bare stage.
- If you want them to empathise with the frustration of Harker, Seward and Van Helsing as they desperately try to save Lucy's soul, you can present a drawn-out scene where they search desperately for Dracula's coffin in a secret room under Carfax.
- You should probably not try to do both of those things at once. Seriously, when our heroes chased Renfield all the way around the coffin and STILL couldn't find it, I began to think they must have been blinded by the smoke machine.
It had its points, and some of the actors were quite good, but overall... hmm. I'm not sure I'd like to be staging that one with a limited cast and budget; there's an awful lot of "By the way, in between this scene and the previous one, we went off and staked Mina, just so you know". (I'm not sure how much of this is intrinsic to the original Mina-dies version and how much was this particular production.)
Ah well. I got to snuggle my wife in the dark, so it wasn't all bad :-)
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Date: 2007-11-29 10:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 10:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 09:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 05:59 pm (UTC)SkeletorFrank Langella in it, and wondered why Lucy and Mina seemed to have been switched around. I take it that's somewhat closer to the original?no subject
Date: 2007-11-30 06:27 am (UTC)