By L. PIERCE CARSON
Register Staff Writer
Dreamweavers Theatre is celebrating the season of ghouls and goblins with a tongue-in-cheek staging of Tim Kelly's "penny-dreadful" thriller, "The Vampyre."
As one might expect with a playwright who cranked out more than 300 stage works in his lifetime, the cast in this latest Dreamweavers effort stands head and shoulders above the work at hand.
Kelly's two-act tale of debauchery and bloodsucking is but the framework for a group of serious actors to hang their theatrical hats on.
From Marcus Magdaleno's scenery chewing turn as the charmingly vicious vampire with a taste for gambling to Mary Ewart's mugging as a Cockney scullery maid, "The Vampyre" is a campy twist on a more famous Transylvanian theme, played more for laughs than gooseflesh.
Actually, this Kelly stage play is an adaptation of a novella by John Polidori, whose only claim to fame was the fact that he served as personal physician to 19th-century poet, Lord Byron. Seems that Lord Byron attended the same Geneva house party that spawned Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," inspiring him to begin work on a tale of midnight terror. Only Lord Byron was a little ahead of Bram Stoker in chronicling the adventures of a mysterious nobleman who had a penchant for warm blood. When he abandoned the project, Polidori took it up, fashioning it instead as a thinly disguised knock on the consumptive poet.
Dreamweavers directors Corrina Smith and Debbie Baumann have assembled a hard-working cast that, for the most part, understands that the work is painted with a campy brush.
The action takes place over the period of several months at a country estate outside London owned by Lady Harwood, whose bouncing ringlets and tippy-toe shuffling as effected by Rose Marie Sweeney underscore the delightful mugging and double-entendre mumblings the playwright calls for.
Although it's a little confusing, it seems that a brother and sister are her wards (Lydia and Aubrey) and another young woman (Melissa) is a friend to all, and apparently lives on the estate as well.
Lord Ruthven, whose love poems are all the rage (hint, hint, Lord Byron), has tapped the young impressionable Aubrey -- who's up to his jugular in debt to the estimable lord -- to be his traveling companion. During the trip (a minor scene change, actually), Aubrey comes to learn of his bunkmate's dastardly deeds and returns home to consult his former classmate, who's now a neighboring doctor. Friends arrive for a dinner party and -- wait a minute, I wouldn't want to spoil it for you now, would I?
Suffice it to say that the malevolent Magdaleno scares the crap out of the youthful set, with evil glances, shadow-crouching snarls and everything but a Snively Whiplash mustache tweak. All except Lady Harwood, of course, who suspects he's indeed a wolf clad in shearling.
Karla Bunter and Jessica MacMillan swoon and swosh about the stage, caught up in the tension of the moment -- that is until MacMillan's Melissa agrees to marry the night crawling lord.
Cherubic Hayden Scott puffs out his chest in an attempt to distract from pubescent naivet, while Robert Silva provides as much decorum as he can muster -- and the directing team will allow -- in the role of the doctor and former schoolmate.
Gabe Frey contributes blue collar macho as the handsome, wise stableman, while Joanna Bourne portrays fox-wise housekeeper with both wink and a nod. Upper crust houseguests from London get their due in the hands of Patte Quinn and Bob Kays. Brooklyn Santiago menaces, ever so briefly, as a knife-wielding something-or-other driven by Lord Ruthven's past nefarious deeds.
The Dreamweavers tech crew deserves high marks as well for a well-crafted set and lighting design, with R.M. Montgomery earning extra credits for putting together a classy period wardrobe for the dozen cast members.
Wine country theatergoers won't be bowled over by the yarns spun in this "Dracula" knock-off, but I think they'll find that the dime novel theatrics of the sure-footed cast is deserving of their attention. "The Vampyre" continues weekends through Nov. 19.
From the Napa Register's website - © 2005, Pulitzer Newspapers, Inc.
