We took the L downtown and grabbed a bite to eat, namely, the manna that is Italian beef. It was from Gold Coast Dogs and it was OK. But OK Italian beef in Chicago means that it's better than the vast majority of beef here in Madison. With a little bit of time yet before the show, we went to the Chicago Cultural Center and poked around. First we saw a menagerie of portraits of Chicago mayors. My memory goes back to Jane Byrne. Next we took in some rather tiny photographs by Dan Zamudio which he took with a toy camera. They were photographs of Chicago. Some were streetscapes while others captured the ever-rarer neon signs of the city. There was also a selection of water towers which are also vanishing here in the 21st century.
The D was particularly entranced with Vivian Maier's street portraiture. The pictures were mostly of people in New York and Chicago in the 1950s and they were striking. Just very clear, crisp and honest moments captured on celluloid. Lastly there was an exhibit on Louis Sullivan, the architect. It explored his style with photos of his buildings blown up to cover whole walls, blueprints, and bits of buildings that had been torn down such as balusters.
On to the play!
Carmilla is based on the novella of the same name by J. Sheridan Le Fanu. Published in 1872, it predates Bram Stoker's Dracula by 25 years and the playbill was quick to emphasize this. I've never read it so I cannot say how close to the source material the play stayed.
It begins with Laura who lives with her father, a widower, in Styria which is a province of Austria. She is a young woman who has, numerically speaking, just come of age. With her blond hair and fair skin, she is very beautiful but she dresses very conservatively. Laura is inexperienced and lonely, longing for friendship and desiring to escape arranged marriage. Her governesses provide some respite as they alternately comfort and gently poke fun at her with innuendo and tales of their exploits with men. Things look up when she hears of Bertha, the daughter of her father's friend General Spielsdorf. But Fate has other things in mind. A letter from the general informs her that Bertha had been killed. We in the audience know that it was by the hand or rather by the mouth of a mysterious figure hidden in a cloak who went right for the jugular.
One day Laura is out with her father and her caretakers when they witness a carriage accident. Three people escape – a woman along with her daughter and servant. She pleads with Laura's father to take care of her daughter. She has urgent business and wants to entrust her girl with him until she can return three months hence. The daughter is Carmilla and, at Laura's prodding, she is taken in for a bit of convalescing while her mother departs.
Carmilla is a striking figure. Her dark hair and ample bosom, which threatens to burst free from her dress at any moment, stand in stark contrast to Laura. But the pair hit it off right away. For her part, Laura is entranced by Carmilla's worldliness and that she is a free spirit not bound by convention. Carmilla speaks her mind even to the point of brashness. On the other hand, Carmilla views Laura as an innocent ripe for the taking.
At turns Carmilla acts like an older sister to Laura while at others her Sapphic desires bleed through. I can only imagine how well a lesbian vampire went over back in the 19th century. Here the contrasts between the two really stand out. Brittany Burch plays Laura and she does so really well. Burch is waifish with a soft, round face. She endows Laura with a rather high-pitched girlie voice and a posh accent. She is like a rich girl in a cocoon waiting to pop out as a woman.
Michaela Petro plays Carmilla. Her features are a bit more angular and her deeper voice is at once commanding and sultry. She plays against Laura very well. Carmilla is lusty and vivacious and she desires to help Laura move into womanhood by showing her the freedom to live outside of society's norms as well as the pleasures of the flesh in more ways that one. She not only puts her feminine wiles on display but also engages in vicious struggles against those who would kill her.
Carmilla's odd behavior and her unwillingness to talk about herself puzzles Laura and her family. In one instance she and Laura witness a gypsy funeral parade and Carmilla is beside herself with rage at the Christian hymn the mourners are singing. Yet she is also capable displaying great affection for Laura. Carmilla is a tragic figure torn between her genuine feelings for the girl and her grisly past which is swiftly catching up with her.
At center stage here are women. The male characters are patriarchal clichés for the most part. Laura's father is a rational man who seeks to adhere to tradition by marrying off his daughter. Dr. Hesselius is almost a buffoon for most of the play with his oddly formed proclamations of disbelief that provided a few laughs. The men are either upholding patriarchal norms or pursuing that other male pastime – killing. They're almost cardboard cutouts.
The two lead women, however, are much more sympathetic and are transformed by the end of the play. Carmilla's bloodlust runs up against her longing for another woman while Laura eventually renounces the constrictive societal norms that bind her. This focus on women is further emphasized by the fact there are only females vampires here. Bertha undergoes the change after being bitten and she has a run-in or two with Carmilla and we witness two women struggling with one another as opposed to men simply lording over women.
In addition to the, for want of a better term, feminist themes of the story, there is plenty of blood to be had here. I mean, it is a WildClaw productions after all. Fangs get a good workout and the fight scenes were really good with judicious use of slow motion acting and strobe lights. And I think I've developed a man-crush on Brian Amidei who plays General Spielsdorf and Baron Vordenburg. They weren't lead roles here but I just loved his scenery chewing towards the end of the play. His accent seemed a bit over the top as he screamed "She must die tonight!" and it was all just slightly on the hammy side and I just loved it. Honestly, I thought everyone did a great job here – those onstage and off. The sound design was great and I really appreciated the use of heartbeats. It may come across as cheesy or clichéd at first but their use was highly effective at drawing out tension.
Carmilla closes on the 20th so go see it if you have the chance. It's a fantastic mixture of feminism and horror and, although I'm not the most experienced theatregoer, I must say that it's the most erotic play I've ever seen.
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