'Bloody Lies': Kind of Anemic

So many people have written humorous takes on the vampire legends, especially in the 80s, e.g. Love at First Bite, Once Bitten, My Best Friend is a Vampire, Transylvania 6-5000, The Fearless Vampire Killers or Pardon Me but your Teeth are in My Neck (basis for the recent Broadway flop musical Dance of the Vampires), and of course Dracula: Dead and Loving it, that one wonders if there's anything left to say on the subject.

The answer, in short, is "no", but Greg Macklin's confusingly named Bloody Lies, now playing as part of the Midtown International Theatre Festival, is so incredibly silly that it's immensely fun and entertaining.  I laughed a lot.

The plot revolves around Clem (Michael Buckley), who lives with his mother (Antonia Marerro).  Their evil lesbian landlady (Larry George) is going to tear down their house to bring lesbian porn to the suburbs.  But there's a secret- Clem is the scion of a count who lives far away in a castle.  Naturally he goes, naturally the Count (Thomas Lash) is ominous, naturally Clem falls in love with the count's beautiful vampire daughter Nina (Elaine Matthews), naturally there's a vampire hunter (Marlene Morreis) lurking about.

The humor is largely based on burlesquing the conventions of the genre (the first thing Clem wants to do when arriving at the castle is shave with a dull razor, naturally cutting himself).  Silly jokes abound, the plot makes about as much sense as a Gilbert and Sullivan opera, but a lot of the dialogue is witty.  The penultimate moment is precisely the same as that of The Fearless Vampire Hunters, and in fact was staged almost identically to the analogous scene in Dance of the Vampires.

The cast is uneven; the vampire characters faring better than the humans.  Gabe Belyeu is hilarious as Renfield and steals every scene he's in, and even some he's not in.  Thomas Lash is perfectly spooky and funny as Count Von Richtenstein.  Brian DeCaluwe is also very amusing as Clem's monolexic chum Barney.  Carrie Cimma as Simparticus seems to be channeling both Richard O'Brien and Patricia Quinn's characters from Rocky Horror and combining them into one frightening dominatrix servant.  Marlene Morreis is sometimes difficult to understand as Drusilla, but her "Lara Croft: Vampire Hunter" regalia speaks for itself.  Elaine Matthews is charming as Nina, and Michael Buckley is quite handsome as Clem- the two have a nice chemistry together.

The direction by Samantha Shectman is confusing and leans more toward witless sound effects and schticky than plumbing any depth or reality out of what is a pretty goofy script to begin with.  Still, it was fun.

Bloody Lies

Part of the Midtown International Theatre Festival

WorkShop Theaters, 312 W. 36^th St, 4^th Floor

WorkShop Mainstage

Tickets Available through Smarttix.com or (212) 868-4444

Monday July 16, 2007 8:30pm

Saturday July 21, 4:45pm

Sunday July 22, 7:30pm

Sunday July 29, 11:30am

Friday August 3, 10:00pm

Sunday August 5, 3:30pm