Playhouse will host blood thirsty ‘Dracula’

By Milan Paurich

Count Dracula is back, and the Youngstown Playhouse has got him — at least for two spooky weekends.

A major hit for the Playhouse nearly a decade ago, “Dracula” returns this Friday just in time to capitalize on Halloween fever. Although the Playhouse’s original count (Alan McCreary) will again be donning the immortal cape and fangs to reprise his bloodthirsty role, a new director (Terri Wilkes) and several major casting changes should help breathe new life — or blood — into the Bram Stoker perennial.

For Wilkes, “Dracula” marks a fun, albeit radical change of pace from her last directing gig (the Oakland Center for the Arts’ Marquee Award-winning spring production of “Driving Miss Daisy”). To help convey the sense of an old black-and-white movie, her “Dracula” will de-emphasize colors in both set and costume design to help achieve a properly monochromatic period look. And Wilkes’ cast of both seasoned veterans and promising newcomers — Dana Ferguson (Lucy); Matt DiBattiste (Jonathan Harker); Terry Shears (Dr. Seward); Tom Hathorn (Van Helsing); Jason Green (Renfield) — practically guarantees a bloody good time for all Halloween thrill-seekers.

In a recent interview, McCreary insisted that he had no qualms about tackling the iconographic Count for a second time. “It’s been quite some time since the Playhouse last performed the show, so I really didn’t have any reservations,” McCreary said matter-of-factly. “The last time we did ‘Dracula,’ the director didn’t want the cast to use accents, but this time we are. I’m happy about that,” he admitted with a chuckle.

Instead of taking advantage of the current vogue for vampire chic (HBO’s “True Blood,” the “Twilight” books and movies), the Playhouse’s “Dracula” promises to be strictly Old School bloodsucking. “We’re going to be true to the letter of the script and play things completely straight,” McCreary said. In other words, purists should have no objections to this particular re-interpretation of the most famous vampire saga of them all.

Considering the fact that everyone from Max Schreck (“Nosferatu”) to Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee (Hammer Films’ series of “Dracula” movies), Frank Langella (the moderately revisionist 1970’s “Dracula” stage play and film) and even George Hamilton (1979’s spoofy “Love at First Bite”) have taken a stab at the Count, McCreary seems remarkably unfazed about sinking his teeth into a role that’s been around for more than a century. “Dracula has been played by so many great actors that all I can really do is try and take something different from each of their performances and try to make it work for me and, hopefully, make it my own,” he said.

Well, maybe not so much from Hamilton’s campy Count. “The way the part is written, there are definitely aspects of the Lugosi and Langella versions,” he added. “But since this is strictly a drama, there’s very little humor in our play.’

Unlike some actors who write elaborately detailed psychological profiles of every role they play, McCreary didn’t feel the need to get all Freudian on Count Dracula. “Having seen so many vampire movies over the years — and having read Bram Stoker’s book a number of times — I think I have a good sense of what this character is about without having to write a personal profile,” he said with a laugh.

Nor does McCreary seem destined to suffer the same typecasting curse that has afflicted so many past Draculas (and nearly destroyed Lugosi’s Hollywood career). In fact, McCreary is already rehearsing his next role — and it’s a part that couldn’t be any more different from Transylvania’s most notorious fiend.

“I’m playing Lumiere in the New Castle Playhouse production of ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ which opens Nov. 20th,” he volunteered. “And in January, I’ll be doing Jack Ballantyne’s Holocaust drama ‘Block 5’ at the Victorian Players.”

What would McCreary like to say to jaded audiences who might be suffering from Dracula fatigue and have elected to sit out this particular revival?

“That’s a really good question,” he said. “But I think that our production really does stand on its own. Plus, the timing is great, isn’t it? I mean, what would Halloween be without a visit to Count Dracula’s castle?”