Dracula - 1924 play
Created by Paige Gaughan on Tue, 11/12/2024 - 00:56
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The 1924 adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula for the stage, written by Irish play wright and actor Hamilton Dean. This was the first authorized adaptation of Stoker's novel. It was revised in 1927 by John Balderston and the original production after touring in England was performed at the Little Theatre in July of that same year. By October of 1927, Balderston had revised yet again and made it's way to Broadway's Fulton Theatre. The story was slightly different in the play, focusing on Van Helsing's investigation of Lucy Seward's illness and with the help her her father and her fiancé after she becomes the victim of the titular Count Dracula. This play also set the basis for the 1931 film and was revived and well received on Broadway in 1977. The thing that I think really sets the tone is that we don't see Dracula's first attack, we only see it as Mina is found to have two tiny marks on her neck, which becomes in media the calling card for a vampire bite, and is the first of many things that became a true calling card of vampire media. In the original script, Mina seems to go into a trance, which implies that the vampire has some sort of supernatural telepathic ability that they use to manipulate their choice of victim. Dracula also appears and disappears with out a trace hinting at supernatural speed as well as attacking at night when Mina is sleeping. In the initial script Mina was actually the primary victim. This play also solidified the idea of things such as garlic being used to ward of vampires as well as the stake through the heart being used to kill them. The play also solidified the appearance of vampires as being that of someone so classy that it almost appears like a rich aristocrat out of time versus someone old and monstrous that we see in Stoker's original novel. Count Dracula although being simply a foreigner in England no longer represented the horribly negative stereotypes seen in the original novel. Overall the play adaptation of Stoker's novel set the standard for vampire fiction as we know it today, even as the novel continued to be adapted, Deane's version of the vampire stuck, with many notable actors taking on the character, Luke Evans playing the character in the 2014 film Dracula Untold, Jonathan Rhys Myers playing him in the 2013 tv show adaptation and the character's that Deane introduced us too were also used for the basis of the characters for the tv show Penny Dreadful. While ultimately the credit of the influence should go to Stoker, Deane played a big part in creating the idea of the vampire we know today.