First Folio's disjointed 'Dracula' can't decide how to play it

"The Passion of Dracula" incorporates a little bit of everything and not enough of one thing, which is a roundabout way of saying that Bob Hall and David Richmond's play doesn't quite know what it wants to be. For that matter, neither does First Folio Theatre's Chicago-area premiere, which suffers from the same schizophrenia that affects the script.

Part melodrama, part sendup, with a soupcon of camp, "The Passion of Dracula" - inspired by the Bram Stoker novel - is neither droll enough to be a farce nor chilling enough to be a thriller. Borrowing liberally from several genres without committing to any one, the play - like its titular character - becomes ensnared in a theatrical netherworld from which not even the able First Folio provides escape.

That's not to say the play lacks humor, although it is perhaps unintended, judging from the reaction of the opening night crowd. Laughs come from the actors' offhand delivery of quippy asides and barbs directed primarily at non-Brits and journalists.

But the banter is hardly the stuff of Noel Coward. Hall and Richmond use the xenophobia that underscores the play mainly as a punchline. And the references to George Bernard Shaw, Dutch painter Hieronymous Bosch and William Blake feel like a ploy to add a veneer of sophistication to a script that doesn't really earn it.

Set in a remote psychiatric asylum in the English countryside, the play opens with Dr. Seward (Donald Brearley), the asylum's director, awaiting news on the condition of his ward Wilhelmina (Monica Szaflik, combining a winsome demeanor with a stiff upper lip) who has been wasting away from an unexplained illness. Neither Seward's friend Professor Van Helsing (James Harms), a Dutch exotic disease specialist, nor Seward's colleague, the Austrian Freudian (of course) psychiatrist Dr. Helga Van Zandt (Saren Nofs-Snyder) has been able to cure her.

As if Seward doesn't have enough on his hands, the inmates have grown restless - especially "No. 1 loony" Renfeld (a sorry, sympathetic Brian Simmons) who has a taste for live insects and a talent for escape, despite the best efforts of Seward's faithful aide Jameson (Steven Pringle) to keep him confined. Renfeld's excursions have made the locals nervous, prompting landowner and Seward benefactor Lord Goldaming (Stanton Davis) to warn that even if they've not yet taken up torches and pitchforks, the natives are getting restless.

Into this "proper bedlam" wanders the jaunty young journalist with car trouble, Jonathan Harker, played with easy charm by Christian Gray, channeling Bertie Wooster, the endearing aristocratic bumbler he played so expertly in First Folio's winter production of P.G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves Intervenes." (More than anyone, Gray "gets it." His performance, which finds him nimbly navigating the line between satire and melodrama, feels best suited to this inconsistent play).

Jonathan immediately falls for the fading Wilhelmina, then encounters a rival in Count Dracula (Ben Werling), a Transylvanian transplant and neighbor to Seward, who wants the young woman for himself.

First Folio typically occupies the more intimate library of the Mayslake Peabody Estate. But for this show, director Alison C. Vesely stages the play in the chapel of the gothic-style mansion, a setting more conducive to set designer Angela Miller's two-story English manor. David Mauer's eerie sound design, the sinister fog that periodically envelops the stage and the special effects reflect a tip of the hat to Hollywood horror classics. But their efforts can't cure what ails this show, whose flaws are exacerbated by performances that don't coalesce. The actors seem to be in different plays. For Simmons it's a tragedy, for Gray it's a Cary Grant romantic comedy and for Werling, it's a B-movie.

A snappier pace might overcome the discrepancies or at least make them less obvious. Playing the whole thing as a straight-up farce might also make for a more coherent tone, something the script and direction fails to establish.

In any case, more therapy's required before this play's deemed sound.

2 1/2 stars

"The Passion of Dracula"

@x BTO factbox text bold with rule:Location: Mayslake Peabody Estate, 1717 W. 31st St., Oak Brook

Times: 8 p.m. Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays through Nov. 2. Also 1:30 p.m. Oct. 14, 2 p.m. Oct. 28

Running time: About 2 hours, 10 minutes with intermission

Tickets: $23-$30

Parking: Free lot adjacent to the estate

Box office: (630) 986-8067

Rating: Suitable for middle school and older

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Video</h2> <ul class="video"> <li><a href="/multimedia/?category=1&type=video&item=210">Clips from 'Passion of Dracula' </a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>