The Wall St.Journal 28Feb2020

A10| Friday, February 28, 2020 ** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

guff-from-men vampire slayer

(“You were expecting a withered

old Dutch man?”) who spends the

evening hunting down the title

character (Matthew Amendt). This

Dracula is pointedly described in

the script as a “toxic predator,” a

timely piece of char-

acterization and one

that Mr. Amendt

brings to life—

so to speak—

with lip-

smacking

relish. (He

reminded

me at

times of

George

Hamilton’s

wonderfully

funny Dracula

in the 1979 film

“Love at First Bite.”)

While the show’s

dead-serious premise

is that all men are ca-

pable under the right

circumstances of suc-

cumbing to the ever-

present temptation to

mistreat women, Ms.

Hamill has plenty of

fun proving her

point, and the comic

bits, directed with

cleverness and flair

by Sarna Lapine, keep her from

slipping into preachiness. To be

sure, she italicizes her moral a

touch too explicitly in the last

scene, but Ms. Hamill has nonethe-

less given us a tremendously en-

tertaining “Dracula” that has

GREAT BIG HIT stamped all over it

and is doubtless destined to be

taken up by regional theaters from

coast to coast, as well it should be.

Mr. Bernays’s “Frankenstein” is

a tidy piece of storytelling, very

well staged by Mr. Douglas, that

does a surprisingly good job in its

80-minute span of suggesting the

old-fashioned essence of Shelley’s

novel. (I especially like the way in

which both novel and play present

Frankenstein’s monster as a gen-

teel fellow whose glum utterances

are sprinkled with such quaint us-

ages as “withal.”) Would that the

acting were more in keeping with

the tone of the script, but Ms.

Berry and Mr. Morrison both give

naturalistic, unmistakably Ameri-

can performances, whereas Mr.

Bernays’s approach to “Franken-

stein” cries out for something

larger-than-life. In addition to

playing an assortment of small

roles, Mr. Morrison has also com-

posed the Ry Cooder-like inciden-

tal music, which he plays on dulci-

FROM LEFT: JOAN MARCUS; JAMES LEYNSE

Kate Hamill in

‘Dracula,’

right;

Stephanie

Berry in

‘Frankenstein,’

left

New York

EVER SINCEHollywood put Bram

Stoker’s “Dracula” and Mary Shel-

ley’s “Frankenstein” in front of the

cameras in 1931, the two great

novelistic monsters of the 19th

century have been yoked in the

public mind. Now Classic Stage

Company is producing newly writ-

ten adaptations of both novels

that have little in common save

for their modest scale but none-

theless make for a natural, nicely

contrasted pairing.

Kate Hamill’s “Dracula,” like her

widely performed versions of “Little

Women,” “Pride and Prejudice,”

“Sense and Sensibility” and “Vanity

Fair,” takes a beloved 19th-century

novel and turns it into a crisply

wrought play with a good-sized cast

(nine actors) and a feminist slant

(the title page describes it as “a bit

of a feminist revenge fantasy, re-

ally”). Conversely, Tristan Bernays’s

“Frankenstein” is a miniaturization

of the 1818 novel in which the parts

are divided up between two actors,

Stephanie Berry and Rob Morrison.

Save for the casting of Ms. Berry, a

black woman who doubles as the

monster and its creator, there is

nothing political about either the

play or Timothy Douglas’s directing

of it.

“Dracula” first: Here as in her

previous plays, Ms. Hamill’s explic-

itly feminist perspective helps to

put a fresh, theatrically potent

spin on the novel. Among other

things, she herself plays Renfield,

Dracula’s creepy, blood-lusty aco-

lyte, with Jessica Frances Dukes

cast as Van Helsing, the take-no-

mer, mandolin and steel guitar and

which is winningly atmospheric.

John Doyle, Classic Stage’s ar-

tistic director, designed the sets

for both productions, which are in

his familiar minimalistic manner

and serve their purpose admira-

bly. “Dracula” also profits from

the presence of Leon Rothenberg

and Adam Honoré, respectively

the sound and lighting designers,

who pull out all the spook-show

stops to skin-crawling effect. I

also liked the multifarious ways in

which Robert Perdziola, the cos-

tume designer, uses crimson-red

jewelry as an eye-catching substi-

tute for stage blood. Mind you, I

likestage blood, as does Ms. Ha-

mill—she admits as much in the

script—but Mr. Perdziola deserves

full credit for trimming Classic

Stage’s laundry bill without dimin-

ishing the show’s force.

One last thing: Ms. Hamill’s ad-

aptations of the classics are end-

lessly ingenious, but she has unlim-

ited talent, and surely the time has

now come for her to try her hand

at an original play. Perhaps a door-

slamming farce? Whatever she de-

cides to do, it will be worth seeing.

Dracula

Frankenstein

Classic Stage Company, 136 E. 13th St.

($80), 212-352-3101/866-811-4111, per-

formed in rotating repertory, closing

March 8

Mr. Teachout, the Journal’s drama

critic, is the author of “Satchmo at

the Waldorf.” Write to him at

[email protected].

THEATER REVIEW| TERRY TEACHOUT

‘Dracula’ and ‘Frankenstein’: Marvelous Monster Mash

N

early 90 years after

Claude Rains took

off those bandages

and redefined los-

ing face, “The In-

visible Man” has

been repurposed in a feminist ver-

sion that might be called “The In-

visible Man vs. The Indomitable

Woman.”

This latest iteration of the clas-

sic horror comedy centers on a vis-

ible, vulnerable female. Cecilia

(Elisabeth Moss), a budding archi-

tect, is trapped in an abusive rela-

tionship with Adrian (Oliver Jack-

son-Cohen), a brilliant scientist

specializing in optics. When she

flees his bed and elegant board in

the dead of night, he either com-

mits suicide—that’s what a news

report says—or, using his high-tech

chops, becomes a stealth stalker/

slasher, bent on revenge. In other

words, the movie becomes another

mutation of “The Turn of the

Screw,” with a heroine who’s either

beset by a man she can’t see or a

victim of her florid delusions. Leigh

Whannell’s film is ingenious, fre-

quently scary and a Grand Guignol

tour de force for Ms. Moss. It’s also

purposeful to a fault as a fable for

the #MeToo era. Cecilia’s evolution

from abject terror

to fearless power

is satisfying and

admirable but the

pace is terribly

slow, with an arc

that’s predictable

at almost every

step of the peril-

ous way.

James Whale’s

1933 original, a

black-and-white

feature adapted

from the H.G.

Wells novel, was

both frightening

and funny, with

visual effects so

astonishing for

the period that

audiences didn’t

know at a given

moment whether

to scream, gasp

or laugh. The run-

ning time was

short, a mere 71

minutes, yet

Rains, appearing

in his first sound film, brought

great intensity of feeling and a

marvelous voice to the role of a

mad scientist bent on ruling the

world.

Special effects alone don’t delight

today’s audiences, so Mr. Whannell’s

film, set in and around the Bay

Area, concentrates on being fright-

ening, although it’s mildly playful

every now and then. The first hint

we get of Adrian’s invisible presence

in Cecilia’s personal space is a little

puff of breath on a chilly California

night. Stefan Duscio’s camera will

call our attention to a corner of an

ostensibly empty room in a cinema-

tographer’s equivalent of a wink.

The running time is 124 minutes,

and that’s a significant problem. Ms.

Moss brings her own impressive re-

sources to her role, but there are

only so many variations an actor

can play on the theme of being

scared to death, which is how the

script portrays Cecilia for much too

long. As she finally begins to change

from passive victim to active com-

batant, the story gathers momen-

tum and dramatic force.

gleaming knives, he creates steady-

state mayhem until everyone who

loves her and has tried to protect

her concludes she’s nutty. (Harriet

Dyer is her sister, Emily. Aldis

Hodge is her friend James, a big-

hearted cop. Storm Reid is Sydney,

James’s school-age daughter and

an aspiring fashion designer. Mi-

chael Dorman is Tom, Adrian’s

brother, who becomes the execu-

tor of the scientist’s estate after

his supposed suicide.)

As a writer Mr. Whannell cre-

ated, with James Wan, the hugely

successful “Saw”

franchise. His

script for “The In-

visible Man” has

its share of holes

unrelated to invisi-

bility, and more

than its share of

people being

punched, kicked,

strangled, shot or

slashed by the un-

seen villain. As a

director, he’s less

concerned with

subtlety or variety

than with the im-

pact of big mo-

ments, a pattern

that grows repeti-

tive. (Benjamin

Wallfisch did the agitated score.)

Still, the scariness quotient re-

mains high to the end, the plot is

sufficiently twisty, and it’s stirring

to watch Cecilia prevail against

monstrosity without becoming a

monster herself. As to how it all

works out, let’s just say that the

right person gets the last slash.

And change she must, because

Adrian is more than a stalker. A

gaslighter in a time of LEDs, he al-

ters Cecilia’s reality with hacks and

thefts—and with what she suspects

to be fake news about his suicide—

to the point that she doubts her

own sanity. An obsessive-compul-

sive brute with a fondness for

Elisabeth Moss stars as

an architect terrorized

by her abusive ex in the

latest spin on the novel.

UNIVERSAL STUDIOS (4)

FILM REVIEW|JOE MORGENSTERN

‘Invisible Man’:

Long Time, No See

Clockwise from right: Elisabeth Moss as Cecilia;

Oliver Jackson-Cohen as Adrian; Aldis Hodge as

James; and Ms. Moss

LIFE&ARTS