Horrors!
St. Andrew's Eve is a theatrical page-turner
by Bill Rodriguez
ST. ANDREW'S EVE, by James D'Entremont. Directed by Victor W. Lavenstein Jr. With Joanna Liao,
Ralph Stokes, Halley Lavenstein, Terrence Shea, and Marie Hennedy. At NewGate
Theatre through November 15.
What is this tendency around Halloween, an autumnal coping mechanism that makes
us seek out scary tales? NewGate Theatre has indulged more than once in the
juiciest sub-genre of all, the vampire tale -- chock-full of delicious
hemosexual subtext -- to chilling effect. Now they've outdone themselves,
staging an ambitious premiere of St. Andrew's Eve, by James
D'Entremont.
The wonderful Gothic extravagance will be quite an evening's indulgence for
some, a treat along the lines of hunkering down for a dark and stormy weekend
with a stack of Anne Rice novels. The charming play runs just under four hours,
including its two intermissions. It has to start at 7:30 in order to get you
out by 11:30, a prospect that could send many casual theatergoers fleeing.
But, believe it or not, it's worth sticking around for. This play is as
lyrical as it is lengthy, leavened by humor, and eventually becomes a real
theatrical page-turner. It is a loose adaptation of Carmilla, the 1872
gothic novel by J.S. LeFanu, an Irish folklorist. Boston playwright D'Entremont
says in his program notes that he wanted to simulate "the scope and texture of
a large Victorian novel." A tall order, as well as a brave or foolhardy one in
our age of sound-bite sensibilities. So St. Andrew's Eve is leisurely
with a vengeance. The vampire tale proper, and the susspenseful action, doesn't
even begin until the last minutes of the first act.
The playwright is banking on getting us fascinated enough with his characters
that we're interested even when their banter isn't advancing the story. They
may be Victorian stock characters, but they are drawn with individuality and,
on occasion, humor.
Laura (Joanna Liao) is the pure young victim, who narrates and frames the
story in bracketing scenes, set in a sanitarium. Her father is the imperious
Kendrick Moore (Ralph Stokes), a mercantile bloodsucker who made his fortune
supplying munitions containers in the Civil War (an Americanizing touch by the
playwright). They travel from New York to the forest-shrouded castle where,
years before, Laura's mother contracted a curious weakening malady that soon
killed her. Moore wants solitude to write a book on successful business
practices.
Our main vampire, pale and frail per tradition, is Carmilla (Halley
Lavenstein). She is left unconscious with the Moores at Schloss Augenwald under
mysterious circumstances and soon grows attached to Laura, if you get the
drift. From that point the plot centers around whether Laura will weaken and
join the undead before Carmilla strengthens sufficiently to be able to venture
out into daylight and become mortal once again. That dynamic alone makes this
variation on the vampire theme more engrossing than the usual adaptation of
Bram Stoker's Dracula (written 15 years after Carmilla).
There is a gripping story-within-the-story of a massacre that took place at
the castle 400 years earlier, which Carmilla and her mother were forced to
witness. After that, they were walled into a blood-soaked escape tunnel, which
triggered their vampirism. Several set pieces decorate the storyline to
delightful effect. There is a tipsy man-to-man conversation between Moore and
Laura's wealthy but wimpy American suitor (Terrence Shea); the crude Moores
talk about the rump on a stained-glass Eve that nearly gives the lad the
vapors. The prissy governess Miss Price (Marie Hennedy) says she uses foreign
expressions "only to express notions foreign to my nature." D'Entremont has
written plenty of such dialogue, both rococo in diction to fit the period and
entertaining on-target to fit the characters.
With the exception of Laura and Carmilla, the 14 other characters are played
by half as many actors. Under the direction of Victor W. Lavenstein Jr., this
becomes a plus, allowing some interesting personality contrasts to emerge.
Carol Schlink plays both a buoyant Austrian society matron and the sinister
vampire mother of Carmilla. Suzanne Kaplan is the flirtatious Belgian
"finishing governess" as well as the meek chambermaid Ilse. The cast is filled
out by William Oakes, who mainly plays Moore's humorless English valet, and by
Stan Olszewski, who seethes as the vampire-tracking General Rheinfeld. For the
most part the acting is adequate. But at times I wished they'd been directed to
stop mugging for effect and trust the occasional comical situation to be funny
itself.
If you like, you can discuss such matters with the playwright and other panel
members on Friday, November 14 at 8 p.m. at the theater. Refreshments will
follow, but will not include Bloody Marys.