Photo by Justin Barbin Photography
I have been in the thrall of vampire stories since the first time I met Barnabas Collins on TV’s “Dark Shadows,” racing home from high school to get there ahead of its 4PM Eastern start time and then drinking it up in all of its monstrous glory. I loved Dracula whether the character was played by Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, Gary Oldman or Frank Langella. I fed on the Anne Rice vampire series, and don’t even get me started about Angel or Spike. I even liked the Cullen family (especially Alice) in Twilight, sparkling skin and all. And I’m still kicking myself that I never saw Vampire Lesbians of Sodom back in the 80s.
All of which is to say that when I discovered that Lookingglass Theatre was producing a new show called Untitled Vampire Play, I was all in, and when my horror-loving daughter and I went to the opening night performance, Kevin Douglas’ new show did not disappoint. His conceptually fascinating melange of romance, comedy, tragedy, and horror hit all the perfect notes to keep me and the entire audience totally with him for the 2:20 or so that the play lasted…and although my preference these days is for shorter, one-act plays, the only feeling I had at its end was that I wanted more.
Scenic Designer Alyssa Mohn’s set is the kind of thing of beauty, part gothic, part ultramodern, that can only come together on a stage, and Director Devon de Mayo immerses us in a modern world in which vampires exist from the opening scene, as everyman bartender—and history major—Dom (Jordan Anthony Arredondo) comes home to introduce his smart, beautiful new girlfriend Val (Courtney Rikki Green) to his parents Louie and Alicia (Kareem Bandealy and Cynthia Kaye McWilliams).
Before they—or we—can even meet the young woman, he informs them that she is a vampire. Of course, their reaction is to connect this to some kind of joke or perhaps the vampiric cults they’ve seen on TV, so even though he assures them that she is an actual blood-drinking, coffin-sleeping, old as the hills vampire, both his constantly joking father and his police detective mother don’t believe that for a second. (This couple are the kind of parents who must have really embarrassed young Dom in his teen years: they may not drink blood, but they suck face at the drop of a hat.)
After Dom gives up any idea of controlling their often silly comments, he brings Val (who of course is outside the door waiting to be invited in) to meet them. Val is a stylish, friendly woman—Theresa Ham dresses Green in one stunning outfit after another—and it is immediately clear to all that these young people love each other. However, that runs second to a call from the precinct about a particularly horrific murder that Alicia needs to investigate, a murder we witnessed in a prologue scene, so their evening together needs to be postponed.
It’s a nice piece of exposition from Douglas, but it isn’t quite over yet. Following Val home, we find her living in a large apartment along with her sister Rose (Jin Park), who seems to be using her extended life to become an expert at video games and buy all of the wonderfully quirky outfits she can find. Their home includes coffins that arise from the stage—very colorful and comfortable-looking and another lovely Mohn touch—for the vampires to retire for the day.
There are two more characters to meet, though: Bandealy dons a costume that wouldn’t be out of place in Raiders of the Lost Ark to play a second role: Lance Tardis Van Helsing, a vampire hunter descended from the one in the Bram Stoker novel that started it all. We meet him when Van Helsing confronts Walter Briggs’ Roderick, the other “sibling” (actually both he and Rose are Val’s progeny) in the vampire family, the one who does not agree at all with the blood-in-a-bag lifestyle of Val and (less willingly) Rose. It was Roderick, hunting freely in the city, who killed that victim we saw at the start, the one who pulled Alicia out into the night.
Thus we have all of the elements that any good vampire story requires, and even more. As in Twilight, we have vampires who don’t hunt vs. vampires who do, and whose actions endanger them all. We also have a love affair between a vampire and a mortal, with all of the angst such a relationship engenders. And we have other characters in Van Helsing and Alicia who are hunting the hunters. There is a lot of comedy as well, most notably centering on Dom’s intentionally silly dad and in a scene requiring police tape: Douglas sets everything up brilliantly.
Lighting Designer Jason Lynch has a lot of fun with this one as well: perfectly blending the light with the shadows in all scenes, especially the exceptionally choreographed (thanks to Rachel Lee Flesher) fight scenes, and using the multilevel main structure to tell mini-stories about the characters. This play—easily one of the best of the year—has everything. The final twist might be a bit too foreshadowed, but its emotional power is as undeniable as the moment is inevitable. You don’t have to be as big a vampire fan as I am to enjoy it, either: with great characters and witty dialogue, I suspect that, as long as you don’t simply hate vampires, you’ll love this play. And if you do, why would you go to see a play called Untitled Vampire Play in the first place?
Untitled Vampire Play is being presented by Lookingglass Theatre Company at its updated home in the Chicago Water Tower at Michigan and Chestnut through July 12. Tickets can be found at the Lookingglass website. See our reviews or Theatre in Chicago for more information about this or other Chicago area plays.