Who Am I?22:34 Jul 29 2014
Times Read: 303
Well in general terms I've been fascinated by vampires since a pre-teen, quite possibly when I first got a look at Dark Shadows (around my grandmother's back). I do recall reading Dracula for the very first time around age eleven or twelve, and Carmilla within two years after that. Can still see those first covers in my mind's eye.
Over time it is LeFanu's tale that calls to me most, which proved a source of genuine frustration over the years never seeing what I'd call a genuine adaptation on screen or audio. Vadim's Blood and Roses for example is a fine film, but has precious little to do with LeFanu's story! Hammer's The Vampire Lovers came closest in many ways, except the ambiguities ultimately gave way to formula (especially the near-universal tendency to change Laura's name and give her a suitably young, handsome male romantic interest). Spain's The Blood Spattered Bride actually comes rather close in some ways, but injects a dark echo of Freud which upset the balance for my tastes--although it certainly works as a film, and I applaud it. My own vote for most faithful adaptation would go to the little-known Polish television version from the 1980s. The Showtime Nightmare Classics version had its points, but I very much enjoyed the new Curse of Styria currently looking for distribution.
Some years ago I got a wonderful Christmas present, The New Annotated Dracula by Leslie Klinger and that ultimately inspired me to do the same with my own favorite vampire work, Le Fanu's masterpiece. My own background is in theatre, having graduated with a BA in Theatre Arts from the University of West Florida then the National Shakespeare Conservatory in NYC. I'd always wanted to see a play version of Carmilla, Cannot tell you my frustration upon learning a production at LaMoma closed just before I arrived in New York. Later, there was a touring version on the other side of the Atlantic. A few years back, the Wildclaw Theatre in Chicago did their own version and (again) no way for me to go see it (although in my capacity as writer/reviewer for the website www.vampires.com they offered me a free ticket!).
So I wrote my own. Having gone over every single word of the text in an effort to explain as much as I could, several things immediately came to mind. One was how to recapture the impressions the original audience felt when reading the novella. For example, Austria in 1872 was a police state and everybody knew it. More, that is how they thought of it. Without that ambiguity--that the local Authorities are not at all good guys--the story becomes less intense and complex. More, the novella is a personal narrative told to someone else--an older woman from the city who does not know our narrator well (careful reading the text reveals this). And of course in good literature there's really no such thing as a totally reliable narrator!
All of which led me to what one reviewer called my own play's "greatest conceit." Instead of the mid-1800s (the story itself as written must take place in 1846 at the latest), I set it in the Austria of 1938, immediately following the Anschluss as the country was being integrated into Hitler's Reich. This led to some interesting ideas involving blood and the occult, leading Spielsdorf to eventually becoming an SS officer. But also, I decided to make the entire play the equivalent of a flashback--much like Amadeus or Equus by Peter Shaffer. Laura tells her version of events, explaining to a British legal officer why at the war's end she longs to leave Austria and go to the land of her father, England. Among other things this gives the audience a surrogate on stage, but also let us see Laura tell her version of events butting up against someone else's agenda!
The play premiered in North Hollywood in February 2014, was extended for two weekends, and right now I'm going around offering it to other theatre companies around the country. I have hopes it will 'tread the boards' once more!
COMMENTS
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Isis101
23:24 Jul 29 2014
Interesting tidbits on the background of many vampire literary favorites...thanks for sharing!