The first theatrical performance of Dracula took place one hundred and fourteen years ago today at the Lyceum Theatre in London. Arranged by Bram Stoker to protect the dramatic rights of his novel, the performance took the form of a dramatic reading performed by a fifteen-strong cast drawn from members of the Lyceum’s resident company of actors.
The Lyceum Theatre
The script, comprising of a prologue and five acts containing forty-seven scenes, was largely assembled from the galley proofs for Dracula, which would be published eight days later on May 26, with handwritten additions, changes and stage directions by Stoker. Even at this late stage, Stoker was undecided about the title for his novel. The programme announced Dracula or The Un-dead. When he signed a publishing contract with Archibald Constable and Company two days later the title had changed to The Un-Dead. Six days later he finally settled on Dracula.
Bram Stoker
As was usual for copyright readings, posters were put up outside the theatre only half an hour before the 10:15 a.m. performance. The audience for the four hour reading comprised of two paying members of the public and some of the Lyceum’s actors, crew and staff. The cast, who performed against the castle drop cloths from the theatre’s production of Macbeth, included Edith Craig, the 26 year-old daughter of the great Victorian actress Ellen Terry, as Mina. Edith had a prolific career in the theatre as an actress, often in productions with her mother, director, producer and costume designer. She was also an early pioneer of the women’s suffrage movement. The Mr Jones listed in the programme as Count Dracula has been speculated to be Whitworth Jones, an actor “whose roles veered toward an assortment of wizards, kings, and demons, including Mephistopheles.” by Stoker biographer Barbara Belford. Little is known of the rest of the cast.
Ellen Terry and Edith Craig in the Lyceum’s 1892 production of Henry VIII
Stoker is said to have desperately wanted Sir Henry Irving, on whom he is reputed to have based the character of Dracula, to play the title role in a full production, but Irving adamantly refused. Legend has it that when Stoker asked Irving what he thought of the reading, the actor replied with a dismissive “Dreadful!” According to Ellen Terry, Irving, a supreme egotist, “simply could not give himself up to appreciation. It was never any pleasure to him to see the acting of other actors and actresses.” There may also have been an element of snobbery involved. Although Irving and Stoker had a very close relationship, Stoker was his business manager and confidant, the great Shakespearian and classical actor may have thought it beneath him to appear in a play written by one of his employees.
Sir Henry Irving
Dracula was granted License #162 by the Lord Chamberlain’s Office, the official censor charged with protecting the morals of the British theatregoing public. Surprisingly, considering Dracula’s subject matter, the censor found nothing objectionable in the play. He notified Stoker that it was a “very remarkable dramatic version of your forthcoming novel; which I should say amply fulfils the letter of the copyright law….and to my official mind is satisfied that there is nothing unlicenseable in the piece.”
Despite the granting of a license and Stoker’s conviction that a theatrical production would be a popular hit, bringing in much-needed cash to the Lyceum’s coffers, no version was produced during his lifetime.
Lyceum programme
On May 18th, 1997, exactly one hundred years after the staged reading at the Lyceum, Dracula or the Undead received a second performance at the Spaniards Inn in Hampstead, London, to a paying audience of two – an intentional homage to the original production . The script was published the following year by Pumpkin Books.
A very rare recording of Sir Henry Irving, Bram Stoker’s choice for Count Dracula, delivering a recitation from Richard III, recorded on May 9th, 1898.
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