If I Could Fly I'd Fly Away From Dracula...

Dracula - Theater Lüneburg, 10th November 2012

Another year, another musical premiere at the Theater Lüneburg after last season's dull production of "La Cage Aux Folles" this year's musical is Wildhorn's Dracula which seems to become the new musical to do at rep theatres - well I suppose to get a license for a Wildhorn show is simple and cheap with low royalty fees (ouch, there I said it!). Seriously considering the amount of Wildhorn productions we have seen in this country for the last few years, a phenomen you cannot see in e.g. the UK, there must be a reason - and it cannot be because the shows are so great because then rep theatres would do other greater shows.

But after doing already Jekyll & Hyde in the 2008/2009 season, a horrible production I unfortunately got to see twice as Thomas Christ covered the actual lead in two shows,  it was to be this.

Graf Dracula - Gerd Achilles
Jonathan Harker - Kristian Lucas
Mina Murray - Franka Kraneis
Lucy Westenra - Annabelle Mierzwa
Prof. Abraham van Helsing - Karl Schneider
Renfield - MacKenzie Gallinger
Dr. Jack Seward - Steffen Neutze
Quincey Morris - Marcus Billen
Arthur Holmwood - Volker Tancke

It all started to go wrong for me from the first minute the overture started. Curtain was still closed, text appeared on it: Crowne Plaza Bristol, then a day and a time. Knowing Bristol relatively well I could just think WTF as there is NO Crowne Plaza. If you move it already to modern days do it properly.
But that was harmless to what I was to watch in the next two hours.

I actually do not really want to waste a lot of words on this production. I am not a fan of Wildhorn shows anyway, I know he is usually just to be blamed for the repetitive uninspired music but somehow the people he works with suddenly deliver such rubbish work when before they created some fantastic work (yes Wildhorn fans you may not like that comment but seriously listen to/watch some other musical properly and you know it is true even if you continue to defend the "brilliance" of Wildhorn shows).
So what I had heard from the Broadway production plus the ones over here were not wanting me to watch it. Unfortunately when the cast was announced for the Theater Lüneburg production and both Gerd Achilles and Kristian Lucas being in it I thought I may give it a chance. And hell, what a bad decision to go.
The actual musical is already not a great one but what the director has this show turned into is an insult to the musical business being in almost every respect a painfully bad show.

If it was only for the themeless pop style Wildhorn music which is in full effect here I could live with it (seriously none of the songs sound especially composed for the show but as being recycled, no cloned from songs in other Wildhorn shows and the book/lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton do not help either being so generic and clunky that you must wonder what has happened to their talents since Sunset Boulevard) but in the current licensed version the true potential of such a show is already missed being blind to the substance and its appeal of the novel but this version just tries for whatever reason to re-invent the wheel changing scenes completely, cutting them, turning ideas of the show upside down - and fails - most miserably.

Act 1 is based in the hotel in Bristol though not looking like a four/five star hotel but more like one of these wannabe trendy hostels with all that red where Jonathan Harker visits Dracula who stays in the hotel to sort out the contracts for the house in London etc. Interestingly (not) Renfield is not in an asylum but works as the barkeeper in the hotel and somehow already seems to be part of Dracula's admirer group.

Lucy and Mina eventually arrive in Bristol too, so do Lucy's three suitors, ridiculous that Dr Seward, one of them, also comes along to check out on Renfield. The ridiculous ideas continue with e.g. the double wedding then taking place there.

Act 2 is then moved to Van Helsing's house - and the more ridiculous ideas appear as the whole James Bond touches to when Van Helsing fights with Dracula - and do not get me started on the end when Jonathan Harker wants to shoot Dracula and shoots Mina with Dracula being able to walk away. 
But not only the scenes were adjusted etc but with all these changes it also lost its arc of suspense, not that there is much in the proper version, not even talking about horror - and the regular curtain closes to inform the audience of the time in the storyline did not help either taking the focus away - it was even not done for scene changes just to break up the day.

It may not sound that bad but it is not that there were changes but HOW some scenes were staged as well as when Van Helsing sings his his lost love who appears in his thoughts so onstage with one of the theatre's in house ballet dancers taking over that part and with a low water tank standing onstage splashing water around her and the stage. I just could think WTF? And do not get me started on that tank was later used to clean someone's hands full of blood in it. Or how the extras were used as in the opening in act 2 coming onstage all dressed in baggy trousers and bomber jackets as if in some kind of army showing one of the most cringe-worthy of the evenings - not that the choreography can impress in general being as generic and substanceless as the rest.

Okay better stop now, but there were plenty more empty shallow ideas not adding anything to the show.
In such a mediocre production it is no surprise that most of the cast can not shine as they normally would do.
Otherwise it is just not possible that the normally accomplished talented Gerd Achilles as Dracula is so bloodless, so anaemic. There were people who said he gave a great performance which I so could not see - and trust me I so wanted to like his performance having liked him for many years but where was the dominant, self-confident and dignified Dracula I had wanted to see at the beginning of the show? Being more melancholic all through the show (which he could have been at the end - if the show had the expected ending) and rather static with missing the aura and presence that character needs to have (with seeing the show in Pforzheim in winter 2013 and the role of Dracula being played by Chris Murray who as a person has already the presence that should at least not be an issue).

Franka Kraneis as Mina Murray is for me totally miscast. Anyone who knows me knows also how much it disgusts me when opera singers are cast for musical roles they just simply cannot sing as if in a musical but as being in an opera or operette. And unfortunately she too often sounded like Dracula was an opera for her and not a musical. Seriously theatres STOP it. Give me some decent castings.
I am sure she is a brilliant opera singer (well I cannot stand operas, worst kind of stage art for me, an opinion you may like or not, just accept it, that does NOT make me small minded), but for musicals I do not want such casting. And do not get me started on her acting. I heard of people who liked her. I didn't. There was absolutely no spark between her and Gerd Achilles as Dracula. I found her wooden in the first act, so not delivering the right feeling what the part is about and its importance to the story and in act 2 when Mina is apparently in love with Dracula and tries to protect him it was ALWAYS too much, so overacted, so cringeworthy that it was sometimes already making me laugh again. Yes, Mina is to be a very emotional passionate person but the emotional breakdowns in act 2 were coming out of nowhere looking at act 1 being so inconsistent.

The three guys as Lucy's suitors are all more or less so two dimensional and substanceless. What massively bugged me in their introductory scene when Lucy is to choose one of the three it just simply does not work for me with the show being moved to the modern days.
Such a thing would hardly happen these days with women being so modern and independent, even not the high society - not that Annabelle Mierzwa as Lucy comes across as a member of it sounding like a constantly fan girlie constantly on a high. Her singing is certainly faultless but the OTT'ness goes massively on my nerves after five minutes. There is just so much hysterical screaming (if she was at least just bubbly and lively, no it is always a bit too much) I can take. 

With Renfield being taking out of the asylum and into the hotel the part has lost its specialness. MacKenzie Gallinger is an okay madman but cannot give the part the right meaning. Neither can Karl Schneider as Van Helsing always being too much James Bond than Val Helsing.

Saying all this the whole evening could have been counted as a total waste if it wasn't for the most impressive Kristian Lucas as Jonathan Harker being the only one who gives/been allow to give the part the right edges showing off again his beautiful expressive voice that already left such an impression on me in other shows, especially in Comedian Harmonists a few months ago (can be read >>here), going through believable changes throughout the show and heart and with the ones around him being so disappointing he totally stands out for all the right (or maybe wrong due to the fault of the production?) reasons.

Besides Kristian the orchestra is the only thing that can leave an impression considering the poor material. Just being a bit too loud occasionally though you cannot really blame them considering the small theatre so that you could not hear the performers (sound tech needs to work on that but it is a general issue at this theatre).

 I can only hope that the theatre has read the public reviews as I am not the only who did not like the production reading comments on e.g. musicalzentrale and stops such "director's theatre" experiments (how a few people could give this show actually "bravo shouts" and a standing ovation at curtain call goes beyond my understanding). I have no issue with working with the material there is but looking back at all the shows I have seen at that theatre for the last few years they and the directors they give the productions to have not understood what theatre is first and foremost - to entertain and none could do that totally.