Intimate Entertainment

A scene from the NW Classical Theater's
production of Dracula

That title sounds awfully provocative!  But perhaps provocative isn't a bad way to describe a recent entertainment experience that I enjoyed at a small, local theater here in Portland.  The Northwest Classical Theater is located in the industrial area of downtown Portland, across the river from the city center.  It's not an area that I usually frequent, unless I venture down to see a film at the Ominmax theater at OMSI (the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry).  I had actually had tickets to a Sherlock Holmes play at this theater years ago, but I never made it to that performance.  Thus, I had no experience of the theater and few expectations when I recently bought tickets to their production of Dracula.

Yes, some of us actually enjoyed reading about vampires before the advent of Twilight.  Bram Stoker's novel is a classic of Victorian fiction, and I still enjoy reading it.  I find new layers in the story each time I read it or see a film adaptation.  Coppola's visually lush Bram Stoker's Dracula does hold a permanent and influential place in my mind, however, I was eager to see a live production of the play.  I was curious to see what modern actors would do with the story.

I drove to SE Lincoln and 6th Avenue expecting to walk into a theater and take my place in a row of seats next to a hundred or more theater goers.  I expected to be looking down onto a stage and merely hoped I would get a seat with a good view. What I walked into was a small brownstone building with a large rectangular main room.  A jovial man in jeans took my e-ticket and directed me through a doorway draped in lack.  Apropos, I thought.  When I walked through that doorway, I entered a room the shape of a breadbox and nearly as small.  This was the theater.  A rectangular box with black walls and a concrete floor that was painted black.  Along each long side wall, red bucket seats were arranged in a neat, tight row.  I counted twenty seats along each wall.  The only stage setting included a bed at one end of the room, a 'coffin' at the other end and a small, slightly raised wooden platform in the center of the room.  I took a seat near the bed, my knees just a foot or so away from the silky purple bedspread draping off the edge.

That platform in the center of the room was occupied by a man who seemed completely at ease, as the forty of us filed in and found a seat.  He was young, thin, and wore a tuxedo.  He lounged in a wooden chair that looked much less comfortable than he looked.  Two other young men sat at the edge of the room, both dressed in black slacks, boots, and white smocks that looked a bit like chef's uniforms.  They leisurely read what appeared to be old fashioned newspapers.  After I was seated, I noticed that the man in the tuxedo wasn't wearing any socks.  I thought, "What kind of a theater is this that their actors aren't even provided with socks as part of their costume."  Every once in a while, the young man would turn and look at one of us, the audience, and grin.  He did it to me twice and I was totally disconcerted.  I looked away as if I was very taken with a spot on the black wall across from me.  Soon, the doorway's curtain was pulled down and we were enclosed in that tiny rectangle together: the two white clad men, the grinner in his tuxedo, and forty playgoers eager to see Dracula come alive.

The young tuxedoed man soon revealed himself to be Renfield, Dracula's pet, whose mind the count controlled and destroyed.  He wasn't wearing any socks because he was in an asylum and having one of his delusions.  The play had started and the actors were just a few feet away from me!

It was the most real, intimate, and visceral entertainment experience I have ever had in my life.  When the scenes would change, the lights would go completely down, the room bathed in darkness.  I couldn't see a thing, but I could hear the actors moving around, taking their places, right in front of me.  At times, I could feel the long gowns of the female actors brushing my leg or across my feet as they walked by in the darkness.

Best of all, the actors were fantastic.  They were compelling and believable.  They never even glanced at us or broke the spell of the play, yet they pulled us in with their vivid, emotional portrayals of the characters.  They screamed, they ran, they fought and cried.  Dracula bit Mina and Lucy and fake blood spilled from his mouth.
And, in that, I did see one of those new layers of the story.  I had personally never seen the story as particularly titillating or erotic, though it was quite controversial in the Victorian era and its sensual undertones have been much examined in literary criticism circles today.  Yet, it was only at this play that I saw it, that I understood how intimate and sensual the story is.  When the actor who played Dracula was kneeling on the bed in front of me and the actress who played Mina was sucking fake blood from a supposed cut on his chest, I recognized the implicit carnality of the scene.

I have been telling everyone about my experience, and I can't wait to go back to the theater for another performance.  Their next production is of Two Gentlemen of Verona and I'm already looking forward to it.