"There are many reasons to watch this two-hour drama. Knowing the background enriches it, but in the end, why not just for the tug on the imagination?"
Barbara Peters,
The Poisoned Pen
As a prelude to our screening of Masterpiece Theatre's Dracula at The Poisoned Pen, we hosted in December a power point program by Dirk Cussler, son and co-author of bestseller Clive Cussler. Their NUMA series in part goes to fund the foundation's salvage work for ships and as they are currently on a hunt for John Paul Jones' ship Bonhomme Richard which went down in the North Sea off Flamborough Head, they work out of Whitby ( www.numa.net/). So those attending had a very good look at modern Whitby, the port, the pubs, the town, the church. And the chalky cliffs along the seacoast, not unlike those so famously on view at Dover.
These landmarks appear in Dracula , composed by author Bram Stoker, an Irishman and graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, who subsequently moved to London, married a beauty courted by Oscar Wilde, and supplemented his income as manager of the Lyceum Theatre by penning novels of sensation (think Wilkie Collins; novels of sensation were eventually trumped by novels of detection thanks to the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but we seem to be going back to them today). Here's what Wikipedia says about Stoker:
"He supplemented his income by writing a large number of sensational novels, his most famous being the vampire tale Dracula which he published in 1897. Before writing Dracula , Stoker spent eight years researching European folklore and stories of vampires. Dracula is an epistolary novel , written as collection of diary entries, telegrams, and letters from the characters, as well as fictional clippings from the Whitby and London newspapers. Stoker's inspiration for the story was a visit to Slains Castle near Aberdeen. The bleak spot provided an excellent backdrop for his creation."
Stoker is known to have spent the summer of 1890 in Whitby but whether he composed any of Dracula there is speculation. So is whether he drew inspiration from the life of Vlad the Impaler (Vlad Tepes in Romanian), a 15 th Century power player in Walachia who used impalement as a means of execution. So are a zillion other things, none of which really matter. What he wrote was a seminal horror story, one that has exerted its pull for over a century, inspired films and countless other stories, the most recent being the 2005 bestseller The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. And the annual Horror Writers Association honors are called the Bram Stoker Awards in tribute to Stoker (who died at age 64, very likely of exhaustion).
Dracula published at a time when potboilers were out aplenty, literature explored threats to the British empire by fantastic creatures and real enemies, the role of women, and developing science sparked imaginations (all the way from H. Rider Haggard and Rudyard Kipling to H.G. Wells and Jules Verne). Plus tourism was on the rise and people traveled. Dracula went into multiple printings but the 20 th century movie industry really goosed its popularity.
I was struck on watching this new interpretation by the eroticism that has always underlain vampirism: sinking fangs into a neck (preferably long and white, possibly virginal) and drinking blood. It is so clearly visible on the screen, so clearly a sexual act. The current vogue for a kind of chicklit vampirism ducks this basic or glosses it over in a way that say Anne Rice did not.
We can also see how the Victorian woman is going more modern here. And the emphasis in this interpretation is on Jonathan Harker, the newly qualified lawyer, as the agent of the man who sets it all into motion: The Hon. Arthur Holmwood (later Lord Godalming) who to his horror witnesses his dissolute father not only dying of syphilis but realizes dad had passed it to his wife and thus to his son. Arthur, newly engaged to the lovely Lucy, a society figure, is doomed; it is his struggle not only to wed but not bed Lucy to protect her and to find some kind of a cure that sends Harker to the remote castle in the Carpathian Mountains and brings Dracula to Whitby and down on an unsuspecting populace. And a sad fate for Lucy.
The science behind Holmwood's attempt at a cure for syphilis is explored in a different way by Diana Gabaldon in Lord John and the Private Matter , a mystery spun off from her bestselling Outlander series.
There are many reasons to watch this two hour drama. Knowing the background enriches it, but in the end, why not just for the tug on your imagination? The Bonus: a chance to see David Suchet, famed for his role as Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, with hair. Suchet is cast as Professor Abraham Van Helsing from Amsterdam , the man with the blood transfusions program and tracker of vampires.–Barbara Peters, The Poisoned Pen www.poisonedpen.com
Masterpiece Theatre "Dracula" airs Sunday, February 11 at 9 p.m. on Eight/KAET-TV.
