Who Was Dracula? (2 page)

“BLOOD OF MY BLOOD”

T
o those who have never read the novel, who feel that they must know Bram Stoker's remarkable creation because they've seen the movie or heard most of the details—the wolves, the bats, the stake through the heart—
Dracula
is full of surprises.

In fact, it is not a great novel, and it has been criticized for its host of implausibilities, coincidences, and overwrought characters. At some point after the well-known adventure in Transylvania and the discovery of one of Dracula's disciples in a London cemetery, the novel slows to a torpid pace. There is a great deal of Victorian moralizing from sweet Mina Harker, the good woman, and Jonathan Harker, her stalwart new husband, as well as the manly men who stalk the vampire. The wise Dutch professor, Van Helsing, seems determined to fill the pages with lectures on his theories about the undead. The vampire hunters concern themselves with real estate sales, deliverymen, and typewritten copies of journals. The teasing and temptingly lewd touches of vampirism disappear. Dracula himself, who makes only sporadic appearances in the book, seems to go missing completely. A modern reader begins to wonder just how Bela Lugosi ever found a place in all of this, or why this odd, clunky detective story has earned such an enviable reputation.

And then, about three-quarters of the way through the book, there is an unexpected murder in the insane asylum. Renfield, the lunatic who has seemed obsessed with life and death, and devoted to his new mysterious “lord and master,” Dracula, is found with a shattered skull. Before he collapses and dies, Renfield confesses that Dracula has been secretly visiting Mina in the night. It's something that, as readers, we have begun to suspect.

The band of vampire hunters race to Mina and Jonathan's room, pound on the door, and then push it open. They're too late.

Jonathan Harker, Mina's husband, is lying across the bed, breathing heavily as if in a stupor.

Mina kneels on the bed, her white nightdress smeared with blood. A “tall, thin man, clad in black,” grips the back of her neck, pressing her face tightly against his bared chest, “forcing her face down on his bosom.” Dracula has pierced a vein in his own chest and forced Mina to drink his blood, with “the terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kitten's nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink.”

Mina later explains how the vampire came into the room, transfixed her husband, leaving him helpless, and snarled his threats to the men hunting him. “And you, their best beloved one, are now to me flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, kin of my kin,” Dracula said to Mina. “You have aided in thwarting me, and now you shall come to my call.” He pulled open his shirt and pierced a vein with a long fingernail, pressing Mina's face close, so that she was forced to lap up his blood.

The scene forms the emotional climax of the book. A reader might anticipate the usual “bite on the neck” vampire attack, but this is something very different. The image of Mina forced to ingest the vampire's blood is completely unexpected and horrific. It stops the book cold. It stops the characters, who gaze upon the scene as Dracula's eyes turn to them “flamed red with devilish passion.” They regain their senses and drive Dracula away with their crucifixes.

The stodgy Victorian novel seems to momentarily collapse under the weight of this bizarre terror and then struggles to right itself and overcome Dracula's suggestive assault. Bram Stoker constructed the scene to echo a marriage, a rape, and an unholy ritual that bristles with sexual energy. It is telling us a different story about vampires and hinting about a very different nature to their threat.

Mina is devastated by her weakness and her fate as one of the “unclean.” The story is hot-wired with a jolt of violent energy. The plot shifts suddenly. The wise professor proclaims that it is no longer enough to drive Dracula away. Mina will survive only if she is cleansed through the vampire's destruction. The chase begins in earnest and propels us to the end of the book, where Dracula meets his fate in Transylvania.

For over a century since its publication in 1897,
Dracula
has tempted audiences with the hint of something more, something darker, something concealed. The Transylvanian folklore, the rules of the undead, provide a comfortable frame for the Victorian novel, but Dracula, the wily old vampire, seems to accomplish something different. He refuses to be pinned to the story and adds his own unexpected, animalistic plot twists. If Bram Stoker's work was never a great novel, it was always a great story—a swirl of nightmarish images that had been borrowed from real heroes, villains, heightened dramas, and theatrical tragedies.
Dracula
's nightmares were first printed on the pages, and quickly imprinted into the world's subconscious.

THE DEMON, “IN A WAY YOU CANNOT DREAM OF”

T
he Lyceum Theatre, London's most prestigious playhouse, had been turned into a laboratory.

In December 1885, the principal scientist and England's leading actor, Henry Irving, was conducting his most important experiments. Irving would pace across the silent rows of seats. Tall and angular with a gaunt face, he was always identifiable in the shadows by his peculiar, bent-legged gait. He would stop, twist his head to survey the action on the stage, or growl staccato directions to the hundreds of actors who gathered in clumps, in halos of limelight. Then he would fall into an upholstered chair, his arm thrown over the back, impatiently tapping his foot as a colored glass filter was adjusted over a gas jet, or a massive piece of scenery—a church wall or a garden cottage—was noisily moved by a small platoon of men in their shirtsleeves.

Slowly, astonishingly, the latest Lyceum production was taking shape onstage. It was nothing less than Goethe's famous story of the devil's bargain,
Faust
. “He is very exact in every detail,” the famous American actor Edwin Booth explained of Henry Irving after they'd worked together in
Othello
, “and requires its elaboration to a nicety. You can easily imagine that the scene does not quickly reach perfection.” The public knew Irving for his quirky, mannered characterizations, like Shylock, Hamlet, and Richard III. He was an expert at grand, haunted characters, and all of London anticipated his role of Mephistopheles. But the hundreds of performers and technicians at the Lyceum were awestruck by his mastery of the theatrical arts. The entire show had already been visualized inside the head of “the Governor,” as his associates respectfully called him. Now, in the empty theater, Irving's vision was being translated to the cast and stagehands who would be entrusted to summon the magic for every performance. And so the hours passed, with whispers to the tight knot of designers and assistants who circled behind him and shouts to the players on the stage, as Henry Irving watched his
Faust
assembled, piece by piece.

Typically the rehearsals for a new show began with four or five hours each day, over six or eight weeks. Then the smaller scenes were slowly assembled on the Lyceum stage late at night and into the morning after the curtain was rung down on the current production. Finally, the previous show was removed from the theater and the new feature was completely installed. The company would endure a full week of endless work and adjustments as the Governor took charge. The process was exhausting and disorienting, a concentrated assault that denied the real world. In the darkness of the theater, the company's denizens lost track of the days turning into nights and then days again. Only when an exterior door rudely slammed open was the illusion destroyed, and a sudden blast of cold air or the rays of a winter sunset intruded into the sepulcher that was the Lyceum, temporarily upstaging the fantastic images and pure artifice that were being created on the stage.

Throughout the process, the officious man usually standing behind Irving—or seated in the next row, leaning over to answer Irving's question and then dash to the office to send a telegram—was his chief factotum, a tall, barrel-chested Irishman whose neatly trimmed red beard enhanced his special authority, like a Shakespearean king. As the “Acting Manager” of the Lyceum, he was responsible for pushing numbers back and forth on the budgets, arranging the schedules, writing letters, and smoothing over the personal relationships that were invariably neglected by an artist like Irving but were necessary for the mighty battle plans that would propel
Faust
to the stage.

Irving suddenly stood and squinted at the scenery, brushing back the long lock of hair that had fallen into his eyes. He was now completely satisfied with the precise mixture of gray, indigo, and olive green that had been daubed onto the curved glass filters. The actor had envisioned a specific surreal moonlight for the Brocken scene, and it had taken hours to find the blend of colors that would chill the naturally white-yellow glare of the gaslight. “That's it,” he whispered to himself, examining the soft shadows that now surrounded the enormous papier-mâché snow-covered boulders and an outcropping of black trees on the blasted mountaintop. “Stoker?” The man with the red beard took two steps forward. Without looking, Irving knew that his Acting Manager was there, so he continued his question. “How many imps and goblins do we have?” Bram Stoker glanced down at a sheaf of notes in his hand. “Yes, Mr. Irving. We've designated thirty extras as imps . . . fifty extras as demons . . . fifty as witches . . .”

“Hmm . . . And yet,” Irving interrupted with his flat theatrical drawl, “I suppose you can anticipate my thoughts, can't you? It's really about the sweep of motion, the action of a wave crashing against the shore.” Bram Stoker nodded, returning to his notes. “I'll pull the additional costumes from stock, and give you over three hundred performers, all together.” Licking a finger, he flipped to another page of scrawled notes. “Yes, I can make three fifty available for this scene.” Irving nodded, telling him, “Make half of them witches.” Bram Stoker pulled a short pencil from his vest and began a tally of supernatural beings.

Henry Irving was an international star, a spectacularly quirky, dark, lean actor who had become famous as a producer of remarkably innovative, lavish stage spectacles in London. Queen Victoria was a fan. In fact, Irving was England's first actor honored with a knighthood, which Victoria bestowed in 1895. His
Faust
was the perfect vehicle for his talents and was highly anticipated by London theater fans and London society. In one of the great twists of popular history, Irving is virtually forgotten today. When he is remembered, it is as a relic of the Victorian age, a quaint “Actor Manager” (meaning an actor and manager, as distinguished from Bram Stoker's title, “Acting Manager,” responsible for the daily management of the theater). Irving dictated every detail of his stardom and adjusted history's great roles, like Richard III and Hamlet, to perfectly suit his taste for the mysterious and haunted.

Bram Stoker, the quiet red-haired Irish gentleman whom eminent Victorians remember for his dull devotion, who seemed to live his life in the shadows behind “the Governor,” relentlessly adjusting his budgets and schedules, is forever enshrined for a bravado feat of authorship. He created one of the greatest characters ever imagined, who has only become more famous with each passing year.

—

Faust
was being coldly calculated as a hit, a breathtaking spectacle that would leave London theatergoers agog and reaffirm Irving's preeminence. The actor was then at the height of his success, and the mighty Lyceum productions were supervised by the famous “Unholy Trinity” of the theatrical world: Irving, the star, producer, and creative force; Bram Stoker, responsible for the smooth running of its theater; and H. J. Lovejoy, a grand old man of London show business, who, as Stage Manager, supervised each production behind the curtain. The fourth part of the formula, and to many in the audience the most engaging element of the Lyceum productions, was Ellen Terry, the bright, golden-haired leading lady of many of Irving's shows. She was innocent when the leading actor was morose, beautiful and sympathetic when he was histrionic and mysterious. She won fans—particularly informed fans, like George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde—who would have otherwise sniffed at Henry Irving's ordinary tastes. After Irving's marriage had dissolved, Terry was Irving's unofficial “leading lady” offstage as well.

Henry Irving had begun planning
Faust
by asking an Irish playwright, W. G. Wills, to turn Goethe's poem into a play according to Irving's specifications. The resulting script was a pastiche of the original tale in which Margaret's part was confined to a simple, virtuous innocence, Faust's part was deadened to a plodding scholar, and Mephistopheles—Irving's chosen role—became the sparkling, evil centerpiece. He was envisioned as a tall, lean devil who snarled with an evil lisp and hobbled with a limp. It was a role written to steal the show.

In the summer of 1885, Irving led a group of associates and designers to Nuremberg, studying the local atmosphere, picking up bolts of fabric that could be used for costumes, buying knickknacks and properties. During their research trip, Irving proclaimed that the nearby town of Rothenberg had the right appearance; he wired Hawes Craven, his chief scenic artist, to come from London and join the group, and make sketches of the Rothenberg squares, streets, and countryside so that they could be reproduced on the Lyceum stage.

It was, by far, Irving's most expensive production, but as he had decided that it would be a “drawing” play, Irving rescheduled the opening to ensure that every detail would be perfect. Although a play, not an opera, this
Faust
had been scored with incidental music to be performed by a large orchestra, supporting all the action, in the tradition of Victorian melodrama. The scenery and costumes were elaborately built and painted to simulate etchings of medieval Germany.

During his plans, Irving decided that he would need an organ added to the Lyceum to furnish heavenly music for the church scene. Then a peal of bells was purchased for the angelic finale. A wooden trough for cannonballs was installed on a wall backstage; the sound of the balls rolling down a zigzag trough perfectly simulated a rumble of distant thunder. Special steam boilers were installed beneath the stage to generate the mist for Mephistopheles' entrances.

Then Irving turned his attention to a series of elaborate special effects. In the first scene, when Faust signs the devil's contract in blood, both Faust and Mephistopheles were to lean over an enormous book and the page would begin to glow with an eerie light, illuminating their features. Irving's technicians had concealed a series of batteries and bulbs inside the book. Similarly, Henry Irving experimented with small electric bulbs installed around the edge of Mephistopheles' hood, and dry cell batteries hidden within his full red cloak. The bulbs were arranged to give the demon's face a mysterious, ghastly glow even in the darkest scenes.

A far more elaborate effect was Valentine and Faust's sword duel. Mephistopheles directed the duel from afar. As the characters lunged toward each other, the devil's magic was realized in long, cracking sparks of blue lighting that hissed and jumped from sword to sword. The effect was accomplished by having metal plates mounted in the stage floor. These were wired to a fifty-cell Grove battery. Electrical contacts in the heels of the actors' shoes led to a wire concealed beneath the costumes and up to a special rubber glove with a small metal plate; this plate made contact with the sword. When the actors had their heels on the plates, the sparks leapt from sword to sword.

The electrical device was assembled by one of Thomas Edison's associates, his European agent, Colonel Gouraud. On opening night, the actor playing Valentine momentarily forgot his careful choreography, nervously grabbed the wrong part of the sword, and received a nasty ninety-volt shock.

—

The Lyceum had been equipped for electric lights, but they were never used onstage during Irving's career, except for his unusual special effects. Onstage, electric lamps were considered too unpredictable, too limited, too cold. They seemed to turn actors a ghastly purple color. All of Irving's experiments with makeup and scenic colors were complemented by the golden glow of gaslight.

Ellen Terry always remembered the quality of light at the Lyceum. The brilliant, hissing open flames, in the footlight troughs or reflectors over the stage, glowed and flared on cue to accentuate the action onstage. That light, according to Terry, offered “thick softness with the lovely specks and motes in it, so like natural light.” In fact, the glare of gas footlights provided an undulating layer of hot air, a glassy, almost perceptible wall that not only separated the audience from the magic, but also made everything beyond them seem more magical.

The rest of the formula was limelight, the intense beam of chemical light that had been introduced at the start of Irving's career, as if anticipating his selfish need for a spotlight. This was a focused, sputtering flame, produced when a cylinder of compressed lime was burned in a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen. It was fitting that Henry Irving's Mephistopheles would strut across the stage, illuminated by open flames and crackling, hissing embers. In this way,
Faust
was “modern” only in its slight variations on the Victorian formulas to which Irving was addicted. These included the melodrama (especially overwrought drama and sentiment, enhanced with musical accompaniment), the sensation scene (a lavish, incredible scene that was offered strictly to set tongues wagging), and the historical spectacle (filled with extravagant examples of taste and artistry but always negligent of real history).
Faust
had been adorned and bejeweled with special features, but the result was an evening top-heavy with artistic sensations. Within a generation, these sorts of shows would collapse beneath their own weight.

Bram Stoker's principle job was to support all of Irving's plans, unobtrusively accommodating his indulgences. He later recalled the visit of an artist who watched from backstage during a premiere, noting the staff's fearless devotion to their boss and their hard work. The artist told Stoker, “I would give anything that the world holds, to be served as Irving is!” Stoker always remembered these words, realizing that this blind, selfless trust—serving Irving—was an important element of his duties.

But his second job was to ensure that the theater ran efficiently and productions were reined in to a responsible budget. In this way,
Faust
had raised the hair on the back of the Acting Manager's neck. As he watched preparations for the Brocken scene, just several nights before the December 19 opening, Stoker was becoming concerned.