Australian director Kip Williams will complete his groundbreaking work in gothic cine-theatre with one final, monstrous play: an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula.
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The first two instalments, The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, were both box-office hits for the Sydney Theatre Company (STC), together playing to more than 200,000 people.
Dorian Gray is now set to premiere on London's West End, starring award-winning Australian actor Sarah Snook.
Williams, who is artistic director with the STC, says Bram Stoker's Dracula will finish his trio of Victorian gothic plays, with award-winning actor Zahra Newman playing every role as part of the company's 2024 season.
The three plays have been dubbed cine-theatre - a combination of pre-recorded and live video with live onstage action - and Williams said the audience's enthusiasm was an endorsement of live performance.
"People are so inundated with streaming content, they want to come and see human beings do something extraordinary live," he said.
Williams said while Dorian Gray explored the interior self and Jekyll looked at identity in society, with Dracula the monsters within us bare their teeth, as a manifestation of our deepest fears projected outwards.
With designer Marg Horwell and lighting designer Nick Schlieper again on board, Dracula has been billed as the most ambitious piece of cine-theatre yet - and given the feats of Dorian Gray, in which Eryn Jean Norvill played 26 characters, that's saying something.
Williams said staging Dorian Gray was a rare and thrilling quantum leap, after which he could envisage a decade's worth of productions mining the vein of live video.
While Dracula completes the gothic trio, it is not the end of Williams' experiments with technology. He is turning to more contemporary texts, with several projects in development.
There is also overseas interest in showing all three plays together, which the director says would be a dream come true.
Dracula may grab the limelight, but it's just one of 15 productions in the STC's 2024 season, including 11 written or adapted by Australian playwrights.
New Australian productions include Angus Cerini's Into the Shimmering World, Van Badham's A Fool in Love, and Anchuli Felicia King's one-woman show, American Signs.
The STC will also stage an original production of Dear Evan Hansen with the Michael Cassel Group, directed by Dean Bryant. It is the first company in the world licensed to create a new production of the hit musical after its Broadway run.
There is also a first-time collaboration with Dublin's Gate Theatre for Thomas Bernhard's The President, starring Hugo Weaving and one of Ireland's greatest actors, Olwen Fouere.
And there are three encore seasons: Suzie Miller's RBG: Of Many, One, starring Heather Mitchell; Joanna Murray-Smith's Julia, starring Justine Clarke; and the comedy No Pay? No Way!
Williams said the re-staging was a way of entrenching these plays into the theatre canon, and building awareness of the shows beyond the theatre-going crowd.
"I'm sure they'll become texts that get studied in schools and universities and then hopefully recreated for years and years to come," he said.
There is also a new production of Jane Harrison's 1996 play Stolen, and with Barking Gecko Theatre the puppet show Cicada, based on the picture book by Shaun Tan.
Williams said with RBG and Julia enjoying interstate tours after their recent sell-out runs in Sydney, Australian playwriting has never been stronger.
The Sydney Theatre Company's 2024 season opens with A Fool in Love on February 6. Dracula will play from July 2 until August 4 at the Roslyn Packer Theatre.
Australian Associated Press
