Who Was Dracula? (11 page)

Coincidentally, it was the intrepid McNally and Florescu who then unearthed the evidence that began to unravel their theory. While researching a later book on Dracula, they visited the Rosenbach Library in Philadelphia to see a fifteenth-century pamphlet about Vlad Tepes. An archivist there helpfully mentioned that if the authors were interested in Dracula, they might like to see Bram Stoker's original notes, which were in the library's collection but had not yet been cataloged.

Of course, the authors were thunderstruck. They deciphered Stoker's handwritten notes, which first recorded the dates of its composition and his research. McNally and Florescu then used Stoker's notes in preparing their books
A Clutch of Vampires
(1975) and
The Essential Dracula
(1979). Perplexingly, the dates and sources within Stoker's notes made it apparent that he never had more than a scant knowledge of Vlad Tepes.

There are many small details that attest to Stoker's limited research. For example, Stoker assigned the wrong allegiances to Dracula. In the novel, his character explains that he is a “boyar” (an aristocrat) when, in fact, Vlad Dracula struggled against the boyars. Stoker's villain claimed to have been related to the Szekely, when the actual Dracula was a Basarab, from Wallachia. Even the setting of Transylvania was wrong. The historical Dracula lived in Wallachia, on the outskirts of Transylvania, and had a castle at Poenari.

More telling, Stoker never incorporated the bloodthirsty reputation, his tortures, his impaling, the name Vlad, nor the nickname Tepes (Impaling Prince). In fact, Stoker has Van Helsing say that Dracula was “in life a most wonderful man. Soldier, statesman and alchemist . . .” Could the meticulous Stoker have researched this character and then not used the historical information?

Researchers now generally accept that Stoker was never aware of more than the name and several historical facts. He had not read of the voivode's career or his reputation. After their first book, McNally and Florescu revised their opinions; in 1997, Florescu delivered a paper that concluded, “The connection between the historical Dracula and the novel . . . beyond the title, is limited to four short references from a single book.”

Dracula
scholar Elizabeth Miller has carefully examined the evidence and soberly concluded:

[Stoker's] research seems to have been haphazard (though at times fortuitous) rather than scholarly. What he used, he used “as is,” errors and confusions included. . . . While it is true that the resurgence of interest in Dracula in the early 1970s is due in no small measure to the [McNally and Florescu] theories about such connections, the theories themselves do not withstand the test of close scrutiny.

In fact, it now seems that the Dracula of Stoker's novel had merely the name of the fifteenth-century ruler, but echoed the characteristics of nineteenth-century celebrities, which added to his haunting and mysterious qualities. Dracula was drawn from a handful of dangerous and damaged personalities. Bram Stoker knew them all.

THE NOVELIST, “DREADFUL”

A
s the character of Dracula became enshrined in popular culture, it came to summon distinct, particular images—Bela Lugosi's hypnotic, menacing presence, in a dark opera cape with the high collar; or Christopher Lee's hissing, dissolute Count, part animal and part aristocrat, as he threatens with blazing bloodshot eyes and bared teeth. The novel surprises modern readers by offering almost none of that.

As author and researcher Leonard Wolf points out, Dracula appears on only sixty-two of Stoker's 390 pages, and many of those appearances are incognito—as the coach driver for Jonathan Harker, as the dog that dashes from the
Demeter
, as a bat that threatens at Lucy's window. He is given only a handful of speeches, and there are only two or three opportunities for us to witness his full powers.

Deep in the novel, as the characters discuss the problem in mythic terms and with vague, romantic ideals, the concept of Dracula becomes so abstract that it actually seems a shock to have him burst into a room. As much as Stoker's change of title—from the original
The Un-Dead
to
Dracula
—seems like false advertising, it also becomes his advertising masterpiece. Our anticipation of Dracula, the flapping bat or the swirling mist that circles and never quite arrives inside the novel, becomes the intrigue that keeps readers turning pages.

Even the Count's appearance remains indistinct and debatable. Jonathan Harker describes him as an old man with white hair and an aristocratic, aquiline nose. By the time Dracula arrives in London, he is presumably gorged on blood and rejuvenated, with a sharp dark beard and a “high” nose, long nostrils, and lips that suggest an animal, like a bat.

It was the later incarnations of vampires that created the verb “vamp.” The word implies, from actors like Theda Bara to Robert Pattinson, a delicious combination of seduction and threat. By contrast, Stoker's original character is always repulsive, foreign, and unappealing. When he finally overpowers Mina in her bedroom, it is a horrible, aggressive act, with none of the teasing sexual appeal that Broadway and Hollywood later discovered lurking inside Dracula's coffin.

—

On May 18, 1897, about a week before Stoker's book was officially published, the author arrived early at the Lyceum Theatre for his own experiment.

The Acting Manager, dressed in a dark suit, steeled his nerves and quickened his pace as he turned the corner onto Burleigh Street. It was unusual for him to be approaching the Lyceum stage door with the bright morning sun. When he saw the Lyceum at this hour, it was usually on the way out, after a long, bleary evening of rehearsals with Irving. Bram Stoker pushed open the stage door, turned and checked with Lovejoy, the stage manager, in the wings, and then glanced across the wide Lyceum stage, nicely swept clean and arranged with a small pattern of tables and chairs. Everything was in place. Stoker pushed through the metal pass door and strode up the aisle and into the lobby. There, the ushers were putting out the signboards on the pavement, announcing the special morning program. A neat stack of crisp, white programs had already been arranged on a marble table. Bram Stoker leaned over to examine the printing. “
Dracula, or the Un-Dead.
First Time.”

As Henry Irving's Acting Manager, Stoker had calculated his new character's potential value for the stage; in the past, vampire melodramas had always sold tickets. He knew that even if the vampire proved evasive to the vampire hunters, he would have to lock up Dracula—wrap him in copyright law—to ensure that he didn't escape into the commercial world of the theater.

The process of securing rights to a theatrical production—as dictated by the Lord Chamberlain's office—involved a public performance. The Lyceum had produced a number of these copyright performances, including one for Tennyson,
The Foresters
. It was a necessary part of the theater business. These public shows were not creative exercises but legal necessities, allowing an author to stake his claim to a work and prevent other adaptations. The play for these purposes might be a play in name only: little more than a public reading. The cast might hold scripts in their hands, wander to and from the chairs, exit into the wings, or improvise their own actions to accentuate the words.

Certain necessities would be in place. Gaslights would be turned on. Bits of scenery would be placed on the stage, a few stock backgrounds, a door, a table, and a bundle of props, as needed for the action. To make it an official performance, programs would be printed and a bill posted, but the copyright show was usually scheduled at an inconvenient time and for only a single performance.

This was precisely the case with Stoker's new play, which started promptly at ten a.m. The admission, one guinea, was prohibitively high, designed to discourage an audience. Lyceum records show that only two tickets were sold—no doubt to a couple of theater stalwarts who had taken notice of the special show. The rest of the audience, no more than a handful of spectators sprinkled throughout the stalls, consisted of the cleaning crew, a few friends, and fellow actors. Stoker paced in the back, his usual place during most of Irving's plays, although this production promised exceptional opportunities for pacing.

Fortunately, Stoker's script survives; it was filed with the Lord Chamberlain's office as the contents needed to be approved for decency. While we don't know who watched from the seats, the script allows us to imagine the herky-jerky formality of this one-time production. It was Bram Stoker's only effort to put
Dracula
on the stage, and the only time the Count was dramatized during the author's lifetime.

Stoker's finished script may not have been expected to be a work of art, but the Acting Manager, busy with the publication of his novel and tending to Irving's business, had found the time to assemble only a rough cut-and-paste job, using galleys from the novel and additional lines to stitch the pieces together. The finished script shows evidence of being hurriedly assembled, with long speeches taken directly from the novel and very little effort to dramatize any of the events. In the places where Stoker was forced to write material, the results were deflating and ordinary.

The show opened with a quick overture from the pit, a few musicians who had been recruited to make it feel like a show. The curtain was raised on a smattering of nervous applause from the tiny audience. An actor walked onstage, bowed slightly, and stood behind the lectern.

For this version of
Dracula
, there was no opportunity to provide the rolling travelogue of Transylvania, none of the moonlight niceties that Henry Irving would have fussed over for his own productions. Stoker's script began with the actor playing Jonathan Harker arriving at an imaginary castle door, pounding an imaginary knocker, and calling out loudly. That morning, there couldn't have been much acting. The actor bent over the script, poised on the lectern, reading his lines.

J
ONATHAN
: Hi! Hi! . . . Well, this is a pretty nice state of things! After a drive through solid darkness with an unknown man whose face I have not seen and who has in his hand the strength of twenty men and who can drive back a pack of wolves by holding up his hand . . . to be left here in the dark before a ruin. Upon my life I'm beginning my professional experience in a romantic way! Only passed my exam at Lincoln's Inn before I left London, and here I am conducting my business. . . .

Dracula arrived. The second actor entered through the imaginary door and slid up to the lectern. He was forced to introduce himself with a series of perfectly ordinary lines that made him sound inappropriately befuddled. His opening lines had been adapted from the book and, as in the book, he welcomed his guest three times. On that sunny morning at the Lyceum, there was none of the successful, menacing atmosphere that made Stoker's Transylvania so successful.

C
OUNT
D
RACULA
: Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will.

(Stands immovable till Harker enters, then advances and shakes hands.)

Welcome to my house! Come freely! Go safely! And leave something of the happiness you bring!

H
ARKER
: Count Dracula?

C
OUNT
D
RACULA
: I am Dracula and you are, I take it, Mr. Jonathan Harker, agent of Mr. Peter Hawkins? I bid you welcome Mr. Harker to my house. Come in the night air is chill and you must need to eat and rest.

(Places lamp on
bracket and stepping out carries in luggage.)

H
ARKER
:
(Trying to take luggage.)
Nay, sir, I protest.

C
OUNT
D
RACULA
: Nay sir, the protest is mine. You are my guest. It is late, and my people are not available. Let me see to your comfort myself.

Stoker squinted at the scene and groaned. Barely five minutes into the play, and the script had revealed itself as a crashing bore. Stoker straightened his vest, turning away from the stage and walking impatiently from one aisle to the next. As a solicitor (like his hero Jonathan Harker), Stoker reminded himself that this was not art. It was a legal necessity. At this point,
Dracula
simply had to be endured.

Irving reportedly wandered through the auditorium shortly after he arrived at the Lyceum. He stood briefly at the back and then offered a one-word criticism: “Dreadful.” It was said just a bit too loudly, leaving no doubt about the great actor's disdain for these awful proceedings. He turned and pushed his way through the pass door, returning to his office.

No doubt another interested spectator that morning was Ellen Terry, who walked into the auditorium, delicately took a seat, and listened politely for as long as she could. Her daughter, Edith Craig, had been asked to play Mina. It was a wonderful bit of casting, especially since the Mina of the novel had clearly been inspired by Terry, Stoker's coworker. Edith was in her late twenties, just starting her acting career. She was appearing each night in a small part in
Madame Sans-Gêne
,
the current Lyceum comedy costarring her mother, with Henry Irving taking the part of Napoleon. In fact, most of
Dracula
's cast consisted of character actors from
Madame Sans-Gêne
, with other roles filled out by young actors.

Jonathan Harker was being played by Herbert Passmore, who had worked in the touring company of the Lyceum and was featured in
Madame Sans-Gêne
; Dracula was T. Arthur Jones, a character actor with an aristocratic demeanor who was also appearing each night. The part of Van Helsing was taken by Tom Reynolds, a balding, round-faced comedian with the Lyceum, who went on to a long career in London.

V
AN
H
ELSING
: Brave lad! A moment's courage, and it is done. This stake must be driven through her. It will be a fearful ordeal—be not deceived in that—but it will only be a short time, and you will then rejoice more than your pain was great, and from this grim tomb you will emerge as though you tread on air. But you must not falter when once you have begun. Only think that we, your true friends, are round you, and that we pray for you all the time.

A
RTHUR
: Go on. Tell me what I am to do.

Of course, that morning there was only talk, no dramatic vampire killing or bloody special effects. As the production proceeded, the endless script exhausted the actors and exasperated Stoker. It was filled with speeches clipped directly from the galleys of the book. That morning, the play reading took over four hours—a sign that the actors had adopted a breakneck pace and dry, mechanical recitation. When Stoker's script was given a second reading, exactly one hundred years later at a London pub, the reading took a full six hours.

The conclusion of the play arrived with a dull thud. Having been reduced to a few perfunctory lines, it offered none of the daring chase or supernatural resolution from Stoker's climactic sunset over Castle Dracula. According to the script, Van Helsing and Mina watch as the action continues:

 

(Gypsies and horsemen draw near.) . . .

(Horsemen fight with Gypsies and Morris and Harker throw box from cart and prise it open. Count seen. Fades away as knives cut off his head. Sunset falls on group. Morris is wounded and Harker holds up his head.)

 

The script doesn't explain how this battle could have been staged, or combined with Mina's furtive glances, or the revelation of the scar disappearing from her forehead. In fact, these events couldn't have been enacted that morning—just a few lines from the lectern and a few pantomime gestures. The curtain slowly descended to the sound of a few people applauding.

It was finished.

—

When Stoker's play had been approved by George Redford, the examiner of plays in Lord Chamberlain's office, Redford offered that it was a “very remarkable dramatic version of your forthcoming novel,” and he found nothing “unlicensable” in it. In fact, there was a great deal in Stoker's cut-and-paste play that should never have been approved for a London stage, including Jonathan's attack by the three vampire brides, Lucy's extermination by driving a stake through her heart, Mina's drinking of Dracula's blood in her bedroom, and Dracula's final beheading. Redford must have carelessly approved the play because of his long professional relationship with Stoker, understanding it would never be produced in this form.

The copyright performance had been a humiliating ordeal for Stoker, especially for his friends who had been introduced to his new novel by this tedious performance. There are almost no written memories of the morning. Stoker never spoke of it. More than likely, it was treated as mere busywork.

Whatever Bram Stoker had wished for
Dracula
onstage, the copyright performance was his first and last effort to turn it into drama. After the single Lyceum production, there was no effort made to rewrite the play or produce it in any form. The author must have lost interest or viewed the project as untenable. If he had hoped to impress his boss, Henry Irving, with this new story,
Dracula, or
the Un-Dead
was a distinct failure.