Word: set
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Dracula is indeed a spectacle in the glitzy, multi-media, '90s sense of the word. Multiple brides fly through the air at a rather astonishing pace, a full-sized carriage careens dangerously across the set, gallons of fog are blown onto the stage, and the audience is treated to a rare display of indoor pyrotechnics. So in short, Disney meets The Boston Ballet...
...costumes and sets were magnificent as well--sumptuous materials were used, and the sets could not possibly have been more elaborate. (There was a new, full scale set for each act, and the costumes changed accordingly.) And Liszt's music is powerful, with some of its most haunting moments coming in its quiet, lulling interludes...
Yuri Yanowsky's Dracula is terrifying by any measure. His streaked hair, deep-set eyes and imperious manner could cause any 12-old to have nightmares. And his wings constitute one of the most amazing costuming feats I've ever seen--24 of patterned velvet that swoop with the slightest flick of Yanowsky's wrist, revealing an interior lined with crimson brocade. Maybe itis because his wings are so majestic, but Yanowsky seems unable to move beyond manipulating his wings. His Dracula elicits terror and fear but ultimately fails to realize his narrative and lyrical potential...
...surprising, then, to see this play performed by Hillel Drama. In a daring move, director Josh Edelman '00 and producer Ari VanderWalde '00 set out to confront this "blatantly anti-semitic show" and strip it of all pretensions of heroism or resolution. Their production revolves around Shylock, played by Tim Foley '98. He is a tall, grave man whose dignity is slowly eroded by a festering hatred of the Christians who persecute his nation. He becomes a sort of tragic hero, bound to the stereotype of the Jewish usurer, who can only mourn the loss of his daughter by mourning...
Edelman's set works effectively to underline this theme of materialism. It seems at first ridiculously simple, consisting only of a large box and the three caskets that contain the key to Portia's fortune. These caskets, the very symbols of greed arranged and rearranged into the various settings of the play gradually drive home the inconsistencies in the Venetians' ideals...