Review: Good Company’s ‘Dracula’ is light on the terrors and heavy on the comedy
By Donald Munro
I’m a sucker for a good ensemble cast.
Which is why “Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors” – a Good Company Players production at the 2nd Space Theatre that is conveniently available for you to pencil in through Oct. 19 as a light-hearted Halloween-adjacent activity – often put a smile on my face when I attended a Sunday matinee.
The Munro Review has no paywall but is financially supported by readers who believe in its non-profit mission of bringing professional arts journalism to the central San Joaquin Valley. You can help by signing up for a monthly recurring paid membership or make a one-time donation of as little as $3. All memberships and donations are tax-deductible.
Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen’s contemporary play (it opened Off-Broadway in 2023) is in turns defiantly old-fashioned goofy (Exhibit A: that awful title) and briskly satirical. You know you’re not in 19th century Transylvania anymore when they’re joking about duty-free shopping not really saving you any money.
Simply put, the playwrights superimpose a 21st century comic and sexual sensibility on a well-worn, much beloved vampire tale. In this unconventional retelling, Count Dracula (Joshua Shadle) interacts with the expected cast of characters, though slightly rearranged from Bram Stoker’s novel. These include Jonathan Harker (played by Alexander Gonzalez as a fussy, floppy-haired English solicitor who travels to Transylvania to conduct legal business for the count). Such familiar “Dracula” names as Lucy (Cady Mejias), in this version serving as Jonathan’s fiancee, and Mina (Shelby Guizar), recast as Lucy’s sex-starved sister, along with the vampire expert Dr. Van Helsing (Renee Newlove), and bug-eating manservant Renfield (Guinevere J. Thelin), all offer a grounding in the original tale.
Of course, these characters don’t really exist in Victorian times, even though the setting and time period says so. The wisecracks and sight gags are much more circa 2025. Many of the jokes work. Some don’t. While the results aren’t seamless – the biting humor doesn’t often break the skin, and the second act sort of sags when it puts one of its best characters in a coma – director Denise Graziani has come up with a number of inventive ways to keep the laughs coming.
Gonzalez is a particular delight in his double role as Jonathan Harker (he also appears as Lord Cavendish; most of the actors in the show play multiple characters). He brings a hyperactive, assertive nebbishness to the role. (Think David Hyde-Pierce meets “Monty Python.”) He is often found dialing in a 12 on a scale of 10 in terms of enthusiasm, and only occasionally going so over the top that it comes across as overdone.
STORY CONTINUES AFTER SPONSORED CONTENT
My other favorite is Guizar’s Mina, whose slow boil of perpetual randiness doesn’t come off high heat until her character’s unfortunate encounter with the Count. (However, even when confined to bed, Guizar manages to keep the comic moments coming, helped along by prop masters Elizabeth Fiester and Madeline Wristen, along with costumer Ginger Kay Lewis-Reed, in an unforgettable call to arms.) The rest of the cast, including Adrian Ammsso as Lucy and Mina’s father, all get moments to shine.
I was impressed at the performance I saw with understudy Andrew Warren filling in for the role usually played by Casey Ballard. (I’m always rooting for the understudy, and Warren fit smoothly into the cast.)
As for Dracula himself, Shadle’s character, with his tight leather pants and pansexual leer, brings a “Rocky Horror Picture Show” feel to the play. It’s an amusing portrayal, but here’s where the production starts to feel well-worn and obvious. Dracula as a purring B&D kitten of lasciviousness is sort of expected.
If the script had turned him into something unexpected – a crypto bro, say, or a phlebotomist with an aversion to needles – it could have set the stage for something even snappier and more topical. Still, fans of well-performed farce and “Dracula” will likely find that “Comedy of Terrors” is a good way to celebrate Pre-Halloween.
