Award-winning writer Tatty Hennessy brings an iconic gothic classic to the National Youth Workshop Theatre with a blood-curdlingly thrilling take on Bram Stoker’s 19th-century horror, Dracula, making it abundantly clear from the outset of this NYT Rep Company production that this won’t be your typical monster story.
In many ways, Hennessy’s take on the material is determined to carve its own path, utilising spectacular performances from the hypertalented young cast and an inspired creative team to give a much more thematically and character-driven retelling of the story. Although the production can at times be a bit too abstract for its own good, occasionally losing narrative focus and muddying some of the thematic throughlines that hold the premise together, Hennessy deftly balances traditional horror elements with an almost defiantly tender look at the inner worlds of what we decide to call monsters.
The creative team behind Dracula delivers a masterclass in visual storytelling, with acclaimed director Atri Banerjee using every inch of the stage to great effect. Naomi Dawson’s set design is hauntingly clever, and every prop and drop of paint used adds to the storytelling, combining with Alex Musgrave’s lighting and Pouya Ehsaei’s sound design to create a chilling, foreboding atmosphere throughout. Costume designer Hannah Schmidt pulls off one of the trickier missions in the production, having to communicate two vastly different time periods authentically, while the team finds an impressive number of ways to effectively utilise fake blood.
Of course, the beating heart of this time hopping horror is its cast. Boasting an ensemble bursting at the seams with promise, Dracula’s National Youth Theatre cast gives phenomenally gripping turns that belie their years. The commitment of every player is clear for all to see, with physical performances that perfectly sell the gory body horror of the material, and what’s even more impressive is how well they execute the more emotionally complex and delicate moments of the script. With writing that keeps in the campier, more grandiose elements of the source material, it’d be easy enough for the cast to go too far and veer into hamming it up, but the entire ensemble wholly understands what’s needed to maintain the humanity at the core of the project while still delivering on the fantastical horror elements with aplomb.
Overall, Tatty Hennessy’s take on Dracula is a spine-chilling theatrical treat. While the script can at times suffer from tonal inconsistencies, and its attempts to bring vastly different elements crashing together at the climax aren’t executed as well as the rest of the show, the adaptation as a whole still shines. There’s an assuredness and a clarity of purpose that courses through the blood of this National Youth Workshop Theatre production, meaning that while there are enough elements to remind us of the shoulders it stands on, Hennessy refuses to use the source material as a crutch and instead goes her own way, showing that our flawed yet beautiful humanity can make monsters of us all.
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