“I sometimes think we must be all mad and that we shall wake to sanity in strait-waistcoats.”
The Jim and Joyce Faulkner Performing Arts Center premiered “Dracula. Here. Now” featuring the Northwest Arkansas Ballet Theatre this past weekend. According to a NWA Press Release, “[this] ballet, centered on the character Dracula and his relationships, is a unique combination of plot elements extracted from Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel and more current dramatic elements extrapolated from both stage and screen.”
Artistic director, Stephen Wynne, hosted a director’s chat open to the public before the Oct. 11 performance.
“After reading Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, Dracula, I asked myself, how can this swelling language and the depths of its nuances be successfully translated into ballet, into movement, into an unforgettable experience,” Wynne said. “I believe I have found a path, an answer, and I’m inviting you to come and see.”
The novelis told through ship logs, newspaper clippings, letters and diary entries. This timeless tale has been adapted into plays, paintings, music and films. Wynne pulled inspiration from the 1992 film version of Dracula as well as the 2001 musical adaptation, which premiered in the La Jolla Playhouse in California.
“For [the] ballet, it gives more movement possibilities because you can’t speak the words,” Wynne explained in The Free Weekly. “You’re trying to say things with images and with texture and movement. I feel like the Spirit Dracula was birthed by another way of trying to express Stoker’s language.”
“Dracula. Here. Now” was a hauntingly beautiful ballet full of quick lighting changes, transitions between instrumental and vocal music and a series of dark images projected onto a scrim at the back of the stage. FPAC’s technical director, Isaac Baker, and his team deserve a standing ovation for their navigation of this gothic tale.
The ballet begins with Jonathan Harker and his wife, Mina, saying their goodbyes. When Dracula and his household appear, the lights come up on an empty wedding table and chairs. A man, with his back to the audience, stands in a chair stamped with a blood red cursive D.
As Dracula and his bride begin to dance upstage left, the man in the chair does not move until he lunges himself towards the door and Jonathan Harker. This is Dracula’s Spirit, who expresses everything Dracula is feeling but cannot show. The hour-long production called back to the theatre and film of the ‘20s and ‘30s.
The NWA Ballet Theatre will perform this beautifully crafted ballet in Eureka Springs atThe Auditorium Oct. 27th (tickets $25) and again atThe Momentary on Oct. 31st (tickets $35). Tickets can also be purchased atStubs.net or the ballet’s websiteNWA Ballet Theatre.