Psychiatrists, psychoanalysists and philosophers of every stripe should see the new play at Beowulf Alley Theater, 11 S. Sixth Ave., “The Transylvanian Clockworks” by Don Nigro.
That title is not just a gimmicky trick to catch your attention. Nigro does nothing less than turn the “Dracula” mythology around 180 degrees so we can see behind the face, understand how the clockworks of vampire popularity function.
The free-thinking boomer generation must be feeling a little guilty coming to realize they have raised a new generation of kids with a lot of uptight feelings about sex. Is is just a coincidence vampires are so popular in teen culture these days?
Irony is dripping from the argument that our nation’s newest generation has much in common with those much-maligned Victorians. The ones who refused to admit they had sex even as they built powerful empires that brought new technology to many countries that had been living with latent scientific awareness.
This awareness makes “The Transylvanian Clockworks” even more timely. Freud would have loved it, too.
Nigro changes the structure of Bram Stoker’s novel “Dracula” a little bit. The playwright eliminates the nutty, insect-obsessed Renfield and adds a third lovely female in the family of distressed lovely females who live at the spooky estate of the proudly Christian gentleman Dr. Van Helsing.
The play opens with Jonathan Harker (John Mussack) pretty much a basket case of nervous noises and ticks after returning to London from a business trip in Romania. He is, basically, the Renfield character but this Harker is obsessed with eating blood pudding and raw flesh.
Eventually we learn Jonathan is unhappily married to Mina Harker (Elizabeth Leadon-Sonnenfelt). She is one of three ladies in mental distress, sharing a bedroom with Lucy Westenra (Danielle Shirar) and the housemaid Peg (Laura Davenport).
All three females are taken with the nightly sight of a distinguished-looking gentleman in the garden. He is always exceptionally polite, though he refuses to be deterred from his vigil.
Adding his own complications is the young Dr. John Seward (Evan Engle). He receives the flirtatious attention of Mina, while he also tells tales of a rumored ghost ship, the menacing and mysterious serial killer nicknamed Jack the Ripper, and wondering exactly what sort of business the sleepless Dracula (David Michael Swisher) is conducting when he isn’t standing outside in their garden. He does seem to be shipping and receiving an exceptional number of very large boxes.
Though the dialogue is what we think of as proper Victorian speech, the words are packed with double entendre. While watching, we can theorize how a society that is stewing in its own sexual frustration needs the vampire myth in order to explain all the fainting women in the grip of some mysterious hysteria.
Science was beginning to push Christianity off center stage, so instead of saying “The Devil made me do it,” men and women alike could answer “The vampire made me do it.”
While the women succumb to Dracula’s charms, the men with their phallic wooden stakes and heavy hammers run about destroying the competition…that is, the vampires.
Thus it has been necessary over the centuries to keep the vampire myth alive not only to satisfy the female desire for fantasy lovers but also to satisfy the male desire for taking action.
Nigro the playwright lays it all out in poetic fashion with theatrical flair. Dave Sewell as director of the Beowulf Alley production takes an understated approach. He wants the clockwork mechanisms in all this shadowy behavior to be clearly revealed at a calm pace.
Once you have looked into “The Transylvanian Clockworks,” Dracula will never have the same impact. Once you start applying this explanation to the younger generation’s fascination with teen vampires, well….
