Dracula of Transylvania: The Epic Play in Three Acts

by Christofer Cook

  CONDUCTOR

  Please have your tickets at the ready.

  (The Conductor steps from level to level, down the aisle taking tickets and hole-punching them, then returning each ticket to its respective traveler.)

  VAN HELSING

  It is important that we all remain awake even throughout our train ride. To sleep is to invite harm come to us at our most vulnerable

  GODALMING

  I can’t nod off anyway. I haven’t slept at all since my poor Lucy died.

  MORRIS

  Don’t you worry ’bout me. I can hold off forty winks, Professor.

  SEWARD

  I’ve taken the liberty of administering an injection that should keep me awake for hours to come.

  MINA

  I’ll not sleep, Professor.

  HARKER

  Nor I. I’ll keep wide-eyed and alert, as a sentry to my Mina.

  SEWARD

  And it appears, we’re moving.

  VAN HELSING

  Let us make an oath. Right here and now. We shall all stay awake and alert. Are we resolved?

  (They join hands in the center of the aisle as a show of solidarity.)

  ALL

  We are resolved.

  VAN HELSING

  Goot.

  (The travelers sit straight-backed, alert, wide-eyed. They look out the windows now and then to be vigilant that they are not being pursued. The following choreography is movement created to convey travel and the passage of time. It is also a bit of needed humor as the vampire hunters were all resolved to stay awake and yet the hypnotic movement of the train seems to have rocked everyone to sleep. It happens in stages throughout the Conductor’s announcements.)

  CONDUCTOR

  All aboard, final call!

  (Music and sound of train moving forward on the tracks. The riders convey subtle jostling throughout. Lights fade slowly on the riders down to blackout.)

  CONDUCTOR

  First stop!

  (Lights rise slowly revealing that the travelers’ are growing tired. Some with heads heavy, eyelids fluttering, a yawn. Lights fade slowly on the riders down to blackout.)

  CONDUCTOR

  Second Stop!

  (Lights rise slowly revealing that the travelers’ are nodding off slightly. It is clear everyone is more drowsy now. Lights fade slowly on the riders down to blackout.)

  CONDUCTOR

  Third Stop!

  (Lights rise slowly revealing that the travelers’ are now in varying stages of falling asleep. Lights fade slowly on the riders down to blackout.)

  CONDUCTOR

  Fourth Stop!

  (Lights rise slowly revealing that the travelers’ are now fully prostrate in deep sleep. With their bodies all at the lowest possible position, some are propped up against others, some heads back, mouths agape, while others are slumped forward. Waistcoats have become blankets, valises have become pillows. It is a humorous sight.)

  CONDUCTOR

  Final destination!

  (Train whistle. Startled, the travelers wake slowly, stretch, grab their luggage and exit. Music plays into the next scene as the vampire hunters step off the train and exit the scene.)

  [END OF SCENE]

  Scene 6

  “October 31st”

  [Aboard the Czarina Catherine / Baltic Sea]

  (A small corner of the stage. There are sailing ropes, large cloth bags, a lantern or two, crates, and life preservers hung up on the wall.)

  HARKER

  October 31st, 1893. It is the night prior to all saints. The veil betwixt the living and the dead has now torn at the fabric that holds the metaphysical and the visceral worlds safely disparate. Our train ride from Charing Cross to the ship dock, was, for the most part, uneventful. Arthur and myself are now aboard the Czarina Catherine. The Slovaks tell us that a large vessel has passed them. Accounts are that it was traveling at more than usual speed. She had a double crew on board. This was before they came to Fundu. Could not tell us whether the boat turned into the Bistritza or continued on up the Serest. The cold is perhaps beginning to tell upon me. I’ve entrusted the care of my Mina to the devices of Professor Van Helsing as we are rushing along through the darkness. The cold from the river seems to rise up and strike the ship and mysterious voices of the night surround us. I must now wake my brother in arms; Lord Godalming. We must move to a more secure part of the boat. We seem to be drifting into unknown places and unknown ways; into a whole world of dark and dreadful things. (Lights fade on scene as Harker gently awakens Lord Godalming. They take up their pallets, blankets, and make-shift pillows, then exit. Lights come up upon another part of the stage representing a clearing. Music carries us through from one scene to the next.)

  [END OF SCENE]

  Scene 7

  “Precious Cargo”

  [Carpathians, Transylvania]

  (As music from the previous scene leads in, we see six Slovaks carrying Dracula’s empty coffin from a wooded area to the Castle. The carrying is slow, deliberate, formal. Throughout the mysterious underscoring, they ascend the steps, enter the castle, and place the coffin front and center in the middle of the cold, stone floor. The six exit and scatter about into the surrounding woods. Music plays into the next scene.)

  [END OF SCENE]

  Scene 8

  “The Final Conflict”

  [Carpathians, Transylvania]

  (In music of suspenseful nature, enter the stalking party: Van Helsing, Seward, Harker, Mrs. Harker, Godalming, and Morris. They have made their way to the upper-most peak of Castle Dracula. They enter with lanterns, their ‘Vampire kits’, and long dowels to be cut into wooden stakes.)

  MINA

  This is the place! Right here. The villain resides within the walls of this fortress.

  VAN HELSING

  A successful rendezvous, wouldn’t you say, friends?

  (They set up a quick camp in front of the Main entrance, as they prepare to pry their way in.)

  GODALMING

  Successful, yes, but at the risk of losing one another.

  SEWARD

  The coffin is within. Through our spyglass we’ve seen the gypsies carry the box inside.

  HARKER

  I’ll gather up the cudgels in order that we can carve them down for wooden stakes should we require more. I’ll need the saw blade, Quince. Once I’ve chopped them in thirds we can sharpen the points.

  MORRIS

  We can use my knife. This thing’ll slice a milk pail in half.

  (Suddenly, Mina goes into a mystical trance, wherein she becomes greatly agitated.)

  HARKER

  Mina, are you all right?

  MINA

  Something is wrong.

  HARKER

  Darling, what is it?

  (Music. All of a sudden a single gypsy comes out of nowhere and attacks Morris, leaping upon his back. At different points throughout the stage, the gypsies have cleverly hidden, and now make themselves known by the light of their lanterns. Each places his lantern on the ground at his own feet. The hunters stand in a circle facing out. The gypsies close in slowly, then a battle ensues. They fight. Farm tools, homespun implements of torture and lethal weaponry, such as maces, scythes, and clubs are brandished. The battle between the vampire hunters and the gypsies is spectacular, well-choreographed and exciting. Suddenly, Morris is stabbed by a pitchfork in his abdomen.)

  ALL

  Quincy! Behind you! He’s cut you! Your knife! Kill him! He’s got you! Stabbed! Quince!

  MORRIS

  He only nicked me. I’ll be all right.

  HARKER

  This is our cue, gentlemen. The gypsies have left an open door. Let’s go!

  (The vampire hunters are victorious as they overpower the gypsies and run them off on
e by one. Music continues and the melee moves from the ground area, up to the platform where Dracula’s coffin is at center. The hunters then turn their attention to Dracula’s coffin. All of a sudden, seemingly from out of smoke, Dracula’s three ‘brides’ in white appear. The three attack the six hunters with surprising vigor and success in holding the interlopers off from nearing the coffin. But, the hunters gain advantage and kill the vampiresses. Van Helsing chops off their heads and hurls them into the ravine below. The hunters go to Dracula’s coffin, break open the lid, place a wooden stake at what they believe to be Dracula’s body, and drive through with a hammer. But all that puffs upward is a foggy mist. The hunters are taken aback. Dracula appears in an explosion.)

  DRACULA

  You hunters of wild beasts. Stalkers of the Un-Dead! You thought you saw the Count lying within the box upon the stone. The appearance of soil having fallen off the gypsies’ cart had scattered over him. Why he is deathly pale just like a waxen image, and the red eyes glaring with a horrible vindictive look which you know so well. All a stratagem, Fools! Now, see these eyes upon the sinking sun. The look of hate in them, now turning to triumph! For the Castle Dracula now stands out against a red sky and every stone of its broken battlements articulated within the light of the setting sun. My powers rise! It shall be fully dark soon. And then my strength shall increase a hundred fold! Your corpses, should you escape the curse of my blood shall soon lie among the rubble of this fortress for eternity!

  HARKER

  Like you, so too have I long awaited this day. And now begins my work. The butcher’s work! Had I not been unnerved by thoughts of other dead, and of the living over whom hang such a pall of fear, I might not have gone on. God be thanked my nerve, our nerves do stand. Shall I go further with my butchery? The horrid screeching as the stake drives home; the plunging into your writhing form, and your lips of bloody foam as we cast you forever to the Hell from whence you were spawned?

  DRACULA

  You should have fled in terror and left your work undone. But it is over! Come, join us in our immortality. Do you not want to live forever? I alone possess the ultimate power to either destroy each and every one of you, or grant you eternal life, forever stalking the earth in darkness. The choice is yours. Insufferable torture, exquisite pain and your cries for mercy, shall they go unheard? Is that how you wish to die? A miserable death at my hands? Or join my congregation, and learn what we have learned. The blood is the life!

  HARKER

  We have forced our way to your lair. We are Hell-bent on finishing our task, before the sun sets completely. Neither the pointed weapons leveled by the gypsies in front, nor the howling of the wolves behind, will avert our cause. I’ve grown weary of waiting. It is time now. Words fail me!

  DRACULA

  Perhaps your beautiful wife will prove less tongue-tied.

  HARKER

  MINA!!! NO!!!

  (Mina begins to go to Dracula in her spell. The men make their move and attack Dracula with a vengeance. The vampire is trapped and Harker drives a stake straight through his heart.

  VAN HELSING

  Hold him, John! It is not enough to drive the stake through his heart. A long-blade through his side must intersect with the stake and form a cross.

  SEWARD

  Quincey, your hunting knife!

  GODALMING

  I’ve got him, now Quincey! Stab him! Form the cross!

  (Morris stabs Dracula through his side presumably creating a ‘cross’ in the center of the vampire’s heart. Dracula, in great pain evaporates into dust. In music, Morris turns his side towards the audience, places his fingers at the wound on his side and pulls back with a handful of flowing blood. He falls. Seward runs to him.)

  SEWARD

  Mr. Morris! Quincy! (Seward examines the wound.) The gypsy’s pitchfork has gone straight through! His vital organs have been punctured. There’s too much bleeding. We cannot save him.

  MORRIS

  No, it’s all right. Leave me. Leave me. I’m only too happy to have been of any service. Oh, God! It was worth this to die. Now God be thanked that all has not been in vain. See! Look at your wife! The snow is not more stainless than Ms. Mina’s forehead. The curse has passed away! No, no, leave me, friends to die alone. Afford me, just that much dignity.

  VAN HELSING

  Let him go, Arthur. Leave him to his privacy.

  HARKER

  May you have eternal peace, brave friend.

  (As music underscores, Quincey Morris dies. His cohorts all go into a hard freeze, a beautiful and telling tableau. Van Helsing breaks from the tableau and crosses downstage to address the audience. Music continues to underscore the following.)

  VAN HELSING

  And to our bitter grief, with a smile and silence, he died, a gallant gentleman. But, I was not fully relieved after our final conflict. For it seems that I alone realized something my friends had not. Quincy Morris stabbed Dracula through the heart with a single huntsman’s knife. In order to truly destroy the vampire, however, there needed to have been a second weapon thrust into the monster’s side, creating a cross with both blades. Or as is more commonly done, a wooden stake through the heart would fell the creature. In our haste to dispatch the fiend, no stakes were used. It was Mr. Morris’ hunting knife which pierced the heart and appeared to reduce the vampire king to dust. I fear that like purity and goodness, the wicked cannot be fully destroyed, but only held at bay. For a time. (The upper door of Dracula’s chamber slowly creeks open on its own accord. A flood of blood-red light glows out from the open door.) Heaven forbid it shall one day rise like the phoenix in the hollow boom of a thunderclap! May this evil remain averted for eons we pray, throughout vast oceans of time. For our part? We all went through the flames. And the happiness of some of us, since then is, we think, well worth the pain we endured.

  (The four surviving members of the stalking party come out of their freeze. Van Helsing joins them. Gypsies from the nearby village enter gradually, slowly. They are robed and hooded gypsy women with covered faces. They also enter one by one each holding a beautiful, lit candelabra. Quincy’s body is taken up respectfully by Harker, Van Helsing, Godalming, and Mrs. Harker. Slowly, gradually, all have gathered and formed a line until it appears that twenty or so are all exiting in a solemn procession. We are left with the powerful image of a host of humanity, seeing their way through the darkness with glowing candelabras, held high, flickering, twinkling in the moon-less sky. The procession continues until all have exited and the last flame is seen gradually disappearing into the night. Music comes to a grand end. Fade to black.)

  END OF PLAY

  CHRISTOFER COOK (Playwright) holds an MFA from the Theatre Conservatory of Roosevelt University in Chicago, an MA from South University, and a BA from Winthrop College. In 2014 his play, Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, made its European premiere in Kent, England. His play adaptations include DRACULA of Transylvania, Frankenstein’s Creature, A Night of the Living Dead, Phantom of the Opera and The Tell-Tale Heart. Cook is the author of The Vampire Diaries; ‘Nosferatu Trilogy’, available online. He is a member of the Dramatist’s Guild of America, the Horror Writer’s Association, The Dark Fiction Guild, and the Dracula Society.

  DACRE STOKER (Script Advisor) is the great grand nephew of Bram Stoker and the bestselling co-author of Dracula the Undead (Dutton, 2009), the official Stoker family endorsed sequel to Dracula. Dacre is also the co- editor (with Elizabeth Miller) of The Lost Journal of Bram Stoker: The Dublin Years (Robson Press, 2012). Dacre has consulted and appeared in recent film documentaries about vampires in literature and popular culture. He currently hosts tours to Transylvania exploring both the life and times of the historic Vlad Dracula III and the locations where Bram Stoker set his famous novel. He currently lives in Aiken, SC with his wife Jenne. They manage the Bram Stoker Estate.

  />  

  Christofer Cook, Dracula of Transylvania: The Epic Play in Three Acts