The second act finds him visiting a Croatian family
The following review appeared in the October 31, 2002 New York Times.
John Kraljic
THEATER REVIEW; Excuse Me, but Your Teeth Are in My Neck
By NEIL GENZLINGER
'Son of Drakula'
Dance Theater Workshop
219 West 19th Street, Chelsea
Whole armies have become bogged down in the Balkans, so it was probably
inevitable that David Drake would suffer the same fate in his otherwise
terrific new one-man show, ''Son of Drakula,'' which opened last night
at Dance Theater Workshop.
Mr. Drake, whose résumé includes ''The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me,''
here embarks on a genealogical search. He was born David Drakula and
goes to inordinate lengths to find out how he is connected to either
Bram Stoker's fictional Dracula or the 15th-century East European
warlord Vlad Dracula, known as Vlad the Impaler. Family members used to
emphasize the pronunciation dra-COOL-a, ''as if,'' Mr. Drake says, ''by
pushing down hard on that middle syllable we could push ourselves away
from those European roots.''
In a dazzling, inventive first act, Mr. Drake recounts his trip to the
World Dracula Congress in Transylvania, using vocal acrobatics to bring
to life the people he encountered. A sequence in which Mr. Drake relates
snippets from the speeches at the conference (''Bitten by the Byte:
Vampires on the Net'') is knockout hilarious.
Mr. Drake also weaves in glimpses of his childhood. His emerging
sexuality is part of that, but this is not a gay play. It is, rather, a
search for identity in all its meanings.
The second act finds him visiting a Croatian family that shares his
unusual name, and here his ear begins to fail; the tale becomes
meandering. But the first act makes the second forgivable, and Mark T.
Simpson's eye-catching set and lighting enhance it all nicely. NEIL
GENZLINGER
The second act finds him visiting a Croatian family
The following review appeared in the October 31, 2002 New York Times.
John Kraljic
THEATER REVIEW; Excuse Me, but Your Teeth Are in My Neck
By NEIL GENZLINGER
'Son of Drakula'
Dance Theater Workshop
219 West 19th Street, Chelsea
Whole armies have become bogged down in the Balkans, so it was probably
inevitable that David Drake would suffer the same fate in his otherwise
terrific new one-man show, ''Son of Drakula,'' which opened last night
at Dance Theater Workshop.
Mr. Drake, whose résumé includes ''The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me,''
here embarks on a genealogical search. He was born David Drakula and
goes to inordinate lengths to find out how he is connected to either
Bram Stoker's fictional Dracula or the 15th-century East European
warlord Vlad Dracula, known as Vlad the Impaler. Family members used to
emphasize the pronunciation dra-COOL-a, ''as if,'' Mr. Drake says, ''by
pushing down hard on that middle syllable we could push ourselves away
from those European roots.''
In a dazzling, inventive first act, Mr. Drake recounts his trip to the
World Dracula Congress in Transylvania, using vocal acrobatics to bring
to life the people he encountered. A sequence in which Mr. Drake relates
snippets from the speeches at the conference (''Bitten by the Byte:
Vampires on the Net'') is knockout hilarious.
Mr. Drake also weaves in glimpses of his childhood. His emerging
sexuality is part of that, but this is not a gay play. It is, rather, a
search for identity in all its meanings.
The second act finds him visiting a Croatian family that shares his
unusual name, and here his ear begins to fail; the tale becomes
meandering. But the first act makes the second forgivable, and Mark T.
Simpson's eye-catching set and lighting enhance it all nicely. NEIL
GENZLINGER