Dracula: The Untold Story – what the critics are saying
This ‘hypnotically’ watchable show, a co-production with Leeds Playhouse, presents an alternative history of the 20th century
Imitating the Dog is a Leeds-based theatre company that “pushes the boundaries” between theatre and digital technology, said Nick Ahad in The Guardian. Its latest show is a bracingly inventive spin on Dracula in which a 90-year-old woman named Mina Harker turns up at a police station on New Year’s Eve in 1965 to confess to an unlikely 70-year killing spree.
To tell this strange tale, the three actors perform simultaneously for the audience and for cameras on stage, so that their images can be relayed to a giant projection screen and digitally treated to “make it look as though we are watching a graphic novel come to life”. With influences ranging from movies such as Sin City and TV dramas such as Sherlock, to graphic novels including Watchmen and Constantine, this is “theatre as intensely popular culture”. And the result is “never less than engaging”, and often thrilling.
As the piece develops, said Clive Davis in The Times, we realise that what we are seeing is an alternative history of the 20th century: Mina – the wife of the man who hunted down Dracula – is a “merciless proto-superhero waging war against vampirism by eliminating a gallery of political villains from Kaiser Wilhelm to Mussolini and Stalin”.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
In truth, it does become a bit convoluted at times. Yet the fusion of live action and video technology is “breathtakingly inventive”, the show “hypnotically” watchable, the details “exquisitely crafted” and the performances “impeccable”.
It’s the production’s style and swagger, more than the content, that makes this such a “compelling” piece of theatre, agreed Ron Simpson on What’s On Stage. Riana Duce is “remarkable” as Mina: “demure, passionate, aggressive, deeply troubled”; and Adela Rajnovic and Matt Prendergast play multiple other characters with great skill.
The play produces the “odd frisson of terror”, but this is not so much a horror story as an “alternative view of the death and afterlife of Dracula”; and as an alternative approach to live theatre, it is “totally exhilarating”. (Tours to Liverpool, Derby, Lancaster, Watford, Colchester and Salford.)
Leeds Playhouse until 9 Oct, then touring until 13 Nov (imitatingthedog.co.uk)
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
5 ladylike cartoons about women's role in the election
Cartoons Artists take on the political gender gap, Lady Liberty, and more
By The Week US Published
-
The right to die: what can we learn from other countries?
The Explainer A look at the world's assisted dying laws as MPs debate Kim Leadbeater's proposed bill
By The Week Published
-
Volkswagen on the ropes: a crisis of its own making
Talking Point The EV revolution has 'left VW in the proverbial dust'
By The Week UK Published
-
Juror #2: Clint Eastwood's 'cleverly constructed' courtroom drama is 'rock solid'
The Week Recommends Nicholas Hoult stars in 'morally complex' film about a juror on a high-profile murder case
By The Week UK Published
-
Explore a timeless corner of Spain by bike
The Week Recommends Take a 'dawdling route through the back-country' far from the tourism hotspots
By The Week UK Published
-
Saoirse Ronan: how the actress went viral
In the Spotlight The actress dropped a 'chat-icide bomb' on Graham Norton's BBC show
By The Week UK Published
-
Edmund de Waal on this year's Booker Prize shortlist
The Week Recommends The chair of judges details works by Rachel Kushner, Percival Everett and others
By The Week UK Published
-
Griddled salmon and vegetables with miso and melted butter recipe
The Week Recommends Hokkaido comfort food classic with a delicious twist
By The Week UK Published
-
Shattered: Hanif Kureishi's 'inspirational' memoir of accident that left him paralysed
The Week Recommends 'Exhilarating' book is composed of diary entries dictated to his son Carlo
By The Week UK Published
-
Dr. Strangelove: is stage adaptation of iconic film a 'foolish' move?
Talking Point Steve Coogan puts on a dazzling performance in show that falls short of 'the real thing'
By The Week UK Published
-
Small Things Like These: 'stylish' Irish drama 'casts a powerful spell'
The Week Recommends 'Stylish' drama starring Cillian Murphy as a devoted father
By The Week UK Published