Review - Dracula: They All Deserve To Undie

I'll resist the temptation to call director Paul Alexander's Off-Broadway mounting of Dracula anemic or toothless, but will note his remarkable achievement of assembling a production that manages to be aggressively bad in so many ways and yet never achieves the "you gotta see how bad this is" status. Though plagued by inept acting, questionable character choices, cheap-looking (and sounding) effects and a glacial pace, the evening is too dull to be enjoyed on any level.

Scripted by John L. Balderston and Hamilton Deane, this is the version of the story that introduced Bela Lugosi to American audiences in 1927 and turned Frank Langella into Broadway's sexy bad boy fifty years later. The best it might do for Italian actor Michel Altieri is get him a job bartending at Splash. Sporting romance novel good looks with a wigful of hair flowing down his back and a smooth and chiseled chest (which he bares during a passionless seduction ballet set to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata) Altieri alternates between mumbling his lines in an indecipherable accent and hissing like a cat.

The only scary aspect of this moodless production is that the most understated performance is being given by George Hearn. Keeping it low-key as Professor Van Helsing, the mounting's name star escapes with his dignity, as does Timothy Jerome as Dr. Seward.

I'll lean toward blaming the director for the performances of the supporting cast, which range from ineffectual to inexplicable. John Buffalo Mailer's drawling Renfield certainly goes for the jugular during his mad scenes and Rob O'Hare, as attendant Butterworth, deserves sympathy for having his big moment undercut by the decision to display his character's fright by having his hair stiffly molded into a standing-on-end cowlick. When Hearn, cradling the lad's head in his arms in an attempt to calm him, tries petting the hair down, you might, if you're like me, detect just the slightest expression in the Tony-winning actor's sorrowful eyes that seems to be trying to say to the audience, "I know. I'm sorry."

Photo of Michel Altieri and George Hearn by Carol Rosegg.

Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.

"I'm a bad liar. I don't know what to say backstage."
-- Uta Hagen

The grosses are out for the week ending 1/9/2011 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.

Up for the week was: THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST (19.3%), LA BETE (18.1%), A FREE MAN OF COLOR (12.2%), A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC (9.7%), ROCK OF AGES (5.9%), next to normal (5.1%), IN THE HEIGHTS (4.5%), RAIN: A TRIBUTE TO THE BEATLES ON BROADWAY (2.4%), DRIVING MISS DAISY (1.2%), LA CAGE AUX FOLLES (0.7%),

Down for the week was: THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-19.7%), MARY POPPINS (-15.4%), MAMMA MIA! (-13.3%), CHICAGO (-12.6%), MEMPHIS (-9.0%), THE ADDAMS FAMILY (-7.7%), AMERICAN IDIOT (-7.1%), LOMBARDI (-5.1%), THE LION KING (-4.6%), TIME STANDS STILL (-2.6%), JERSEY BOYS (-2.3%), BILLY ELLIOT: THE MUSICAL (-2.3%), Million Dollar Quartet (-2.2%), Colin Quinn: LONG STORY SHORT (-0.2%),