Seventeen: "Expectations"
Adapting a really well-known work has many a peril involved. Yes, fans will complain no matter what you do. Purists gasp in horror at every change, however minute. Regular audience members begin to nod off the more like a long novel any play begins to feel. Perhaps most insidious must be the attempt to make any "old chestnut" fresh.
Many ways offer themselves for this. One of the obvious must be to turn everything around. Make Dracula the hero, Van Helsing the villain. Another lies in shifting focus away from respectable Victorian values towards the more subversive, perhaps seeing Mina and Lucy both as the most victimized of citizens in what is in many ways a dystopia. Eschew tragedy by turning the tale into a comedy of some kind--or put such into sharp focus by taking seriously the hint that Dracula himself is the greatest victim of all (after all, did he ask to be a damned soul, feasting on living blood and hiding in the shadows?).
For the record, all of the above have been done.
What much of the above have in common is drawing lines between good and evil, who is the most sinning versus sinned against, as well as figuring out who is the most victimized therefore in need of protecting. Valid, certainly, as far as it goes. Certainly in keeping with the world view (as far as we may glean it) of the original author!
Hence my decision--to avoid that issue altogether. Is there good and evil? Of course! But in the world I look around and see, those two tend to be entwined together and often very difficult to tell apart. With my mind's eye (or ear) the words of J.R.R.Tolkien keep coming to mind--about preferring history (even if feigned) to allegory, thus giving authority to the reader or audience. Hence I tend to see Dracula more as a ghost story, an encounter of the uncanny from a past that refuses not to become part of the present (despite the presumptions of so many that such makes up the natural order). I want a tale without an obvious hero nor a total villain, wherein people seek their best to do what they see as right and no one can possibly be totally right.
In other words, my version of Dracula will lack any overt message from the author (myself). The individuals stories of each character will (hopefully) explore far more ambiguity, with no one ever being able to successfully claim to be a voice of authority. All are right. All are wrong. Everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes there are no good choices, and facing that deeply uncomfortable fact will make up part of the conflict for everyone.
Or so I hope.
To be continued
For the record, all of the above have been done.
What much of the above have in common is drawing lines between good and evil, who is the most sinning versus sinned against, as well as figuring out who is the most victimized therefore in need of protecting. Valid, certainly, as far as it goes. Certainly in keeping with the world view (as far as we may glean it) of the original author!
Hence my decision--to avoid that issue altogether. Is there good and evil? Of course! But in the world I look around and see, those two tend to be entwined together and often very difficult to tell apart. With my mind's eye (or ear) the words of J.R.R.Tolkien keep coming to mind--about preferring history (even if feigned) to allegory, thus giving authority to the reader or audience. Hence I tend to see Dracula more as a ghost story, an encounter of the uncanny from a past that refuses not to become part of the present (despite the presumptions of so many that such makes up the natural order). I want a tale without an obvious hero nor a total villain, wherein people seek their best to do what they see as right and no one can possibly be totally right.
In other words, my version of Dracula will lack any overt message from the author (myself). The individuals stories of each character will (hopefully) explore far more ambiguity, with no one ever being able to successfully claim to be a voice of authority. All are right. All are wrong. Everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes there are no good choices, and facing that deeply uncomfortable fact will make up part of the conflict for everyone.
Or so I hope.
To be continued
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