A danger lurks in the shadows. Is it a ghost? Is it a demon? Is it the unbearable weight of comparison? Much more threatening than all of that, it’s history’s most prolific vampire – Count Dracula. Now new and improved, with a shock of bright red hair. Sydney Theatre Company’s outgoing Artistic Director Kip Williams sinks his teeth into Bram Stoker’s much-adapted 1897 novel for the eagerly anticipated final chapter of his game-changing gothic cine-theatre trilogy. The story of Dracula has never been told like this before – with just one performer, the award-winning Zahra Newman, portraying all of the characters in the ambitious mash-up of live theatre and film that has become Williams’ signature. This production is fundamentally spectacular, and every bit deserving of the rapturous standing ovation it was met with on opening night. But how does Dracula compare to its predecessors, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde, those other gothic tales that Williams reinvented for modern audiences? There’s a lot riding on Dracula’s bat-winged shoulders – especially with the sensational Dorian Gray poised to debut on Broadway following Sarah Snook’s Olivier Award-winning performance on the West End (not that local audiences will ever be able to imagine anyone owning it like the incredible Eryn Jean Norvill). Photograph: STC/Daniel Boud The show begins in a very stripped-back style – it’s almost alarmingly bare, in fact – with Newman walking onto the stage in t
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