Edinburgh 2022: Review: THE VAMPYRE, The Space

Guest writer: L Gourley

The Vampyre - a gothic thriller by David Last and James Williams, performed by the Performing Arts students from the University of Gloucestershire - is a tale based on Sheridan Le Fanu's vampire novella Carmilla.

Opening with an unsettling chorus, The Vampyre launches straight into the narrative without much in the way of introduction, setting an eerie tone from the first. The choice of thrust staging was particularly effective here, accentuating the trapped or "boxed in" nature of the characters, and allowed the cast to fill the stage area effectively, maintaining deliberately unnerving eye contact with the audience members.

Despite being adept at creating atmosphere, the story itself was slow to open with awkward dialogue and clumsy exposition. Without having pre-knowledge of Carmilla, the initial scenes felt rushed and unclear. This was likely due to the limitations of the fifty-five-minute run time as the scenes race towards the introduction of Carmilla and the main character, Laura. Centred around the death of Bertha, we don't understand why the opening scene is significant until towards the end of the run-time, through the use of flashbacks scenes. A linear timeline would perhaps have worked better in this instance, as it didn't succeed in building intrigue and left the plot somewhat confusing.

From here, the musical finds its rhythm but still suffers from hurried pacing, failing to truly build the relationships important to the central storyline. Carmilla and Laura's first duet solidifies their connection, detailing a shared dream they had of each other as children, but beyond this, Carmilla's later devotion and jealousy feels baseless and sudden. The relationships between the other characters are generally explained through songs without much real interaction, explaining to the audience why certain plot points will have emotional consequences without ever really showing it.

The servants of the estate are used heavily to drive the story, which is a clever use of the short run time but sacrifices time that could be used to build the characterisation and relationships of the main characters. The use of these servants in musical numbers as exposition about the mysteries surrounding Carmilla is quite effective, without feeling too contrived. In fact, the number "Horse and a Hound" achieved genuine laughs and cheers from the audience, stylistically different from the rest of the show in its light comic relief and generally well received.

The clear stand-out of the show is Laura, whose acting and singing talent truly carried this production. The actor's vocal talent was outstanding, and for brief moments it was easy to forget this was an amateur production in a small venue. She conveyed Laura's naivety and innocence without being ham-fisted in her portrayal or becoming a caricature, and her dialogue felt natural throughout.

The true villain of this story was not Carmilla, but rather a heavy-handed backing track that repeatedly drowned out softer vocals or dialogue and left the cast fighting to be heard. The singing talent of the majority of the cast was excellent, with a few of the cast struggling to project their voices sufficiently or trying to wrangle vocals slightly too big for them, which was particularly noticeable in such a small space.

Overall, with a short run time and limited theatrical budget, the cast of this production did very well to depict this adaption of Carmilla. Once past the initial opening scenes, the acting generally felt less wooden and more natural, and the storyline was more cohesive. The music throughout was well-constructed and generally well-performed, used to drive the story in a relatively short space of time. There is evidently a lot of potential within The Vampyre: with a longer run time and a bigger production budget, this could be something special.

To post a comment, you must register and login.