The clocks going back, the evenings getting darker earlier
and winter approaching are sure signs that Halloween is near. With television
and cinema listings brimming with the latest horror movie or classic black and
white (and perhaps not so scary) films of the past. It seems theatre audiences
were no different in liking a good scare.
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| Programme cover of the Lyric production of "The Death of Dracula" |
The programme note for the play, written by John Boyd, names
Graves as being a founding member of Playwrights Canada and had a special
interest in Irish drama, notably, Yeats, O'Casey and Brendan Behan. The play
was directed at the Lyric by Tony Dinner and featured John Cunningham as Count
Dracula, J.J. Murphy as Professor Van Helsing and Stella McCusker as Lucy
Murray.
Graves was born in London, England 5 February 1933 and died
in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada in February 2008. Graves moved with his wife and
two children to Calgary, Alberta in 1964, and then to Edmonton where he worked
as an assistant clerk at the Alberta Legislature. He became a prominent theatre
artist and administrator with Walterdale Playhouse before quitting his
government job to become a self-employed writer in 1974.
In a previous interview with the Canadian Adaptations of Shakespeare
Project in 2004 when asked about the task of adaption for a playwright
entailed, Graves answered:
"Tell a thumping good story
that appeals to the common man, make sure it has a beginning, middle and an end,
and get the bums on the seats. Respect language as gold and not copper coin to
be tossed on the counter.
In my other adaptations, my job
has been to make theatrically possible a story that exists in a different
medium. I suppose my position about adapting a theatrical work that already
exists as a theatrical work would be ––"Why bother?" Why not take the
theme and storyline and use them to write an original work? I recall the story
of a distinguished Hollywood writer producing an excellent script about a
cattle drive for John Wayne and gurgling with delight because nobody recognized
that it was an 'adaptation' of Mutiny on the Bounty."
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| Page of script from Graves' "The Death of Dracula" |
The play is an interesting adaptation of an often told and
re-told story and offers an archival record of this story of the dark Count
once more. The full script of Graves' the
Death of Dracula is available as part of the Lyric Theatre Archive, T4/257.
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| Cast and creative listing for "The Death of Dracula" |
For more from the Lyric archive, see catalogue
in full here.
