'Vampire' play slays audience

Author: Josh Axelrod

"The stage," writes Richard Romagnoli in his Director's notes to this past weekend's Zoo production of Snoo Wilson's "Vampire," "becomes a literal playground of ideas and theatrical styles, full of possibilities with the only limitation being our imaginations."

Taking this complicated aim as it goal, the play follows members from a single family through three generations beginning in 1860 and ending up in 1970, when it was written. At the play's opening, the sisters Jessie (Julia Proctor '05), Joy (Lily Balsen '06) and Ruth (Meghan Nesmith '06) find themselves confronted with the protective religious ideals of their parson father, Davis (Salim Saglam '07) and the moral degradation of the outside world that has come to them through the construction of the British railway system.

From this standpoint, the plot of the play unfolds dramatically and violently. Joy has an affair with Ruth's fiancé Reuben (Peter Abrikian '05), Ruth commits suicide while Reuben attempts to, but only succeeds in blinding himself. Joy and Reuben become lovers and the play moves them to a brothel-like séance where Joy is raped by her father while she is lying in a coffin, trying to communicate with the spirits of the dead.

Despite these dark images, as audience members like Caitlin Dennis '06.5 pointed out, "The energy on stage and the actor's ability to be totally submerged in the life of the play, especially at the end of Act One, was obvious through the uproarious laughter - even amid gunshots and multiple murders." Indeed, as Charles Dickens appears out of the blue, reading a page from "The Olde Curiosity Shoppe," and subsequently bursts into tears, how can anyone resist from laughing in absolute wonder?

But as all this is happening, as Dickens and Freud and Jung appear within the structure of the play, what happens is exactly what Romagnoli suggests - the stage is no longer a contained space, it is boundless, an area for the expansion of argument and ideas. Plot, if there ever was a plot, has been thrown aside, and Balsen's character has become as much of a historical figure as she has the main character. For, as the scene shifts to 1914, it becomes apparent that she is the voice of those who wish to rebel against societal convention and repression.

Thus, the play is able to finally achieve its "modern" view where, as Nesmith explains, the world "is absent of morality and is essentially a vacuum of emotion and connection." And, if one were to look closely at the play's final speech where people are warned of a certain "alien presence" in British society being an imminent threat, the parallel to the play's opening situation become apparent in the form of Davis' attempts to blind his daughters with religious zeal which only ends up destroying and depraving his family.

And through this web of complex commentary and emotion and violence, praises John Stokvis '05, "Lily Balsen was very strong in the lead, commanding the space, portraying each of her three characters powerfully and movingly." Indeed, as Stokvis and Dennis both point out, though the audience may have been confused by the play's aims at times, the strength of the acting and the constant presence of humor made for an enjoyable evening. As Dennis said, "The audience ate up every second of ridiculousness."