Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' Courtesy Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment Touting its "terror, eroticism, and gothic excess," Penguin Classics has reissued Bram Stoker's 1897 classic Dracula for a new generation of horror fiction lovers to sink their teeth into. The imprint has enlisted none other than Nosferatu (2024) director Robert Eggers to situate modern readers with a foreword that weaves his own lifelong obsession with the Gothic folktale to the larger vampire-hunter mythos and what it says about our own fears, repressions and desires. It's impossible to remember a time when I didn't know the name Dracula. Certainly, vampires have been part of my imaginary playground from as young as I can recall. The first Halloween costume that I chose myself was the Count from Sesame Street. My first Dracula costume was a printed cloth mask with bleeding fangs that I had from around the age of five and kept until it was a rag. I was Dracula for Halloween at least four times from ages 8 to 15. Related Stories Lifestyle Kevin Federline Opens Up About Memoir, Britney Spears' Parenting Skills: "Joan Crawford on Crack" Lifestyle Gwyneth Paltrow Says Unauthorized Biography Is "All Rubbish" and "Very Sexist" I would imagine the first exposure to vampires was indeed Sesame Street or some innocent cartoons. But I also had in my possession an illustrated children's book, Vampires by Colin and Jacqui Hawkins, that detailed some (somewhat erroneous) vampire folklore and explained ways to protect yourself from them. It also related the daily life of a fictional vampire family, seemingly inspired by the Addams Family. I remember reading this book cover to cover, day after day. More than anything it was the image of the vampire that took hold of my imagination: all in black, the cape, the widow's peak, the fangs, the nails, the hairy palms. That is what kept me enamored of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Like many horror aficionados, for me the theme to Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake is forever linked with Tod Browning's Dracula, released by Universal in 1931. Whenever I hear the first phrases of the piece, I never think of ballet or the tragic swan. I think of Bela Lugosi. His image, his stare, his Hungarian accent, his costume he brought from his stage portrayal - these are the trappings that have forever encapsulated Dracula for 20th century pop culture. It was of course the lasting ramifications of Lugosi that inspired the illustrations in the Hawkinses' children's book. In spite of interpretations from Christopher Lee (some similar to Lugosi, some less so) and no matter the haunted Max Schreck-inspired Dracula of Klaus Kinski - nor Gary Oldman's operatic performance with its phantasmagorical transformations to werewolves and were-bats and decked out in otherworldly costume sand hair designs by Eiko Ishioka - it is Bela Lugosi's Dracula that has overshadowed every other, including the Count from Bram Stoker's novel. For a long time, this image was my image of Dracula, too. That changed when, at the age of nine, I saw Murnau's 1922 film Nosferatu. Max Schreck's uncanny performance and makeup design were absolutely mesmerizing, as was the film's unparalleled haunting atmosphere, made all the more palpable by the grainy 16mm transfer to VHS. The degraded image felt authentic, as if unearthed from the past. What's more, Murnau and screenwriter Henrik Galeen transformed Stoker's novel into an enigmatic fairy tale.
From then on, I was open to every interpretation and was consuming any kind of vampire content, from Stoker's novel to Montague Summers to comic books. I even had a VHS tape of Dracula: A Cinematic Scrapbook, which attempted to detail every film portrayal of Dracula and included the trailers to nearly all of them. When I was a sophomore in high school, auditions were held for the Balderston-Dean theatrical adaptation of Dracula (in which Lugosi originated the role), I desperately wanted to play the vampire but was cast as Dr. Seward. Later, as a senior in high school, I co-directed an adaptation of Murnau's Nosferatu with my friend Ashley Kelly-Tata (now a seasoned theater and opera director). Our version of the expressionist silent film was performed onstage, all in black and white. Black-and-white makeup, wigs, costumes, and sets. And yes, I played the vampire this time. Edouard Langlois, a formidable dark-bearded gentleman, was the artistic director of the local Edwin Booth Theatre. It was the only "cool" theater in southern New Hampshire. Langlois mounted John Webster and Sam Shepard - not Rodgers and Hammerstein. He saw our humble play and invited us to do it more professionally at his theater. This changed my life. It cemented the fact that I wanted to be a director. I went to drama school in New York, and after graduation my first lead role was Dracula on stage