Synopsis

Among all of our bogeymen, Dracula is the most attractive and most frightening. Why? Because unlike Frankenstein’s Monster, the Wolfman, or the Alien, Dracula is like us – only better. He is smart, cultured, incredibly powerful, and immortal. But what separates Dracula from the rest of us is that he loves better than we do – more passionately, more single-mindedly, and selfishly. Dracula, freed from the distraction of human morality, comes to love Lucy completely, like a glutton loves his food, for what she can do for him. And Lucy, knowing it is within her power to make Dracula love her, is similarly liberated to take all the joy she can from the relationship.

This is the real story behind Dracula’s seductive power – not mesmerism or the force of will. Stoker, Deane and Balderston, and the rest got it wrong. Dracula does not overpower his victims. He listens to them, and loves them, and they respond. Dracula. A Love Story retells the traditional Dracula story, examining aspects of it which have not been told before. The story is set in the modern era, where Lucy Seward, engaged to marry the shallow and banal Jonathan Harker, watches in admiring awe as Vlad Tepes, Count Dracula, ministers to his dying wife, Francesca. When Francesca materializes before Lucy and urges her to take her place at Dracula’s side, Lucy surrenders to the growing passion she feels for Tepes.

After Dracula initiates her into the world of the undead, she becomes a battleground for the warring forces at large in the play. Her father, Harker and parapsychologist Dr. Abraham Van Helsing all struggle to remind her of the pleasures and duties that being human entail. An unexpected twist, involving a half-forgotten character, brings the play to resolution.