STAGE REVIEW : LAMB’S PLAYERS’ ‘DRACULA’ LACKS BITE

Idols may come and go in this fickle, star-starved world, but our monsters are always with us.

Consider the enduring appeal of Frankenstein and Dracula, both subjects of world premieres in San Diego this year. Frankenstein’s emergence in San Diego City College’s “Monstrum” may not have been entirely successful, but it was provocative--a sympathetic portrayal of the creature who hated in revenge for being denied love.

“Monstrum” was just the latest in a long series of productions--from chilling (“Frankenstein”) to comic (“Young Frankenstein”)--inspired by Mary Shelley’s original 1818 creation.

Similarly, “Dracula,” playing at the Lamb’s Players Theatre through Sept. 19, walks some well-trodden ground. Based on Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel (which was drawn from traditional European folklore), Dracula has been depicted as everything from a figure of terror (Bela Lugosi in “Dracula”) to a master of seduction (Frank Langella in “Dracula”) to a bit of both (“Fright Night”) and even a lonely, well-meaning guy with some unfortunate appetites (George Hamilton raiding a blood bank because he doesn’t want to hurt anybody in “Love at First Bite.”)

With all of the directions the Lamb’s Players had to choose from, they unfortunately decided to return to the spirit of the original novel. The result, adapted by Kerry Cederberg and Robert Smyth, is--despite some nice, chilling moments--more historically than thematically interesting.

Not only don’t they provide any new insights into the Dracula legend, but their count is a figure more talked about than talking--we never get to know him. That is a loss, because while the victims are sympathetic, they do not excite the imagination the way the hooded, hungry, haunting figure in black does.

The play is done in story-theater style with a seven-person ensemble alternating between narrating fragments and acting out the story. Heightening the artificiality is a stark set of aluminum boxes and suspended bars designed by Mike Buckley. In contrast to the bare, modern set are the actors’ lovely period costumes by Kristin Allen, Buckley’s dramatic lighting, and--the highlight--a spine-shivering sound design by Bruce Maynes in which the Bernard Herman Quartet plays “Echoes.”

The story begins as Count Dracula prepares his move from Transylvania to England, with the help of an unwitting young man named Jonathan Harker. When Jonathan first meets the count, he finds some of Dracula’s habits odd: His employer abhors mirrors, doesn’t eat, and sleeps during the day.

But Jonathan is a broad-minded young man. He shrugs all this off until he starts hearing howls and screams. Soon his possessions start disappearing. He’s locked in his room. The terror mounts.

Meanwhile, back in England, the young woman Lucy Westenra is visited by a large bat and weakens through loss of blood. Lucy’s fiancee cannot figure out what is wrong with her. He is helped by Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, who is convinced that the answers lie outside the realm of science.

The cast as a whole does well under Smyth’s direction. Still, it is hard to create fire when there are so few sparks in the script. V. L. Smith provides most of the spookiness as Renfield, the asylum inmate with the mysterious connection to Dracula. With her shaved head and crazed, intense eyes, Smith, in playing this man, seizes attention in the way that David Cochran Heath’s Dracula should--but doesn’t. This is not necessarily Heath’s fault; his character is not given enough time or personality to show us what he can do.

Rick Meads acquits himself well as the frightened Jonathan, as does Kurt Reichert as Dr. Van Helsing. Smyth, however, is disconcertingly passionless as Lucy’s fiancee, Dr. Jonathan Seward.

The script also creates problems for the women. Deborah Gilmour Smyth and Kerry Cederberg are appealing enough as Jonathan Harker’s fiancee and Jonathan Seward’s fiancee respectively. But how dramatic can their struggle against the count be if we don’t know just what they are struggling against? Once Dracula bites, they are in his power--but why? Is his power physiological, like a drug? Sexual? Or does he appeal to the weak with a promise of power, a Satan-like figure who destroys people by granting their secret desires? The last is alluded to--via a lot of cross-waving and a reference to the count as “one of God’s madmen”--but only vaguely.

The answer to Dracula’s fatal attraction will, then, have to wait for another incarnation.

“DRACULA”

Adapted from the Bram Stoker novel, “Dracula,” by Kerry Cederberg and Robert Smyth. Director is Robert Smyth. Set and lighting by Michael Buckley. Costumes by Kristin Allen. Sound by Bruce Maynes. Stage manager is Mark Coterill. With Rick Meads, David Cochran Heath, Deborah Gilmour Smyth, Kerry Cederberg, Robert Smyth, V. L. Smith and Kurt Reichert. At 8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, with Saturday matinees at 2. At the Lamb’s Players Theatre, 500 Plaza Blvd., National City.