REVIEW: Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors at Classic Theater Guild
Through 11/9 @ Congregation Beth Israel Hall, Niskayuna
Photos by Kim Collins
“Kevin Miner gives a superlative performance: dashing, refined and fully engaged, he is a fantastic Prince of Darkness and it’s easy to succumb to his charms.”
Vampires are an awfully seductive subject for the stage, especially in October and Classic Theater Guild is on a trick or treater’s sugar high with their production of Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors, playing at Congregation Beth Israel Hall in Niskayuna through 11/9.
The play by Capital Repertory Theatre Artistic Associate Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen had a run at theREP with a cast of five in 2022 before playing off-Broadway and the West End. It takes the Bram Stoker classic novel and shakes it up with sexual innuendos, physical comedy, puns and word play, sound effects and sight gags. There are 14 actors here and the play seems somewhat better suited for the community theater where everyone gets a chance to participate and mugging only helps this play get the job done.
The comedy has an “anything for a laugh” ethos and CTG jumps right in from the start. There’s a game quintet (Rita Machin, Tricia Stuto, Jenna Croswell, Jessie Rosenthal & Jared Saylors) who open the show and work the crowd while scene changes are going on behind a closed curtain — it doesn’t make the scene changes any shorter but at least there’s an acknowledgement that this time needs to be filled.
Many of the actors are doing excellent work starting with The Count himself, Kevin Miner. Miner gives a superlative performance: dashing, refined and fully engaged, he is a fantastic Prince of Darkness and it’s easy to succumb to his charms. As the sisters, Lucy and Mina, Amelia McCarthy puts up a good Victorian fight for her virginity while Shaya Reyes revels in her red headed, bad girl ways.
Sydney Davis continues a jaw dropping streak of versatility from playing Nurse Ratched with Confetti to Demetrius with R’ville to the Player King at ACT. Harker may be their most successful creation yet as their scene with the bloodsucker raises their spirit, voice and physical abandon.
Christine Vermilyea strikes a strong figure as Van Helsing and John McCarthy’s Dr. Westfeldt was appropriately befuddled. Company mainstays Alan Angelo and Doug Gladstone hit all the right notes as local color. Five stars.
Dracula A Comedy of Terrors presented by Classic Theater Guild plays at Congregation Beth Israel Hall through 11/9. Tickets: www.classictheaterguild.com
