Dracula
Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, 1978
Auditorium, Denver, November 1978
Fox, San Diego, December 1978
Curren, San Francisco, December 1978
Shubert, Chicago, February 1979
Role: Dracula

Interview with Jeremy in Chicago (PDF)

Dracula opened on Broadway in 1977 with Frank Langella in the title role. It was a revival of the 1927 Broadway version, which had starred Bela Lugosi. And like Lugosi, Langella would go on to perform the role in a movie version of the play.

In between, the play went on tour, with Jeremy Brett as Count Dracula and the same award-winning Edward Gorey-designed sets and costumes used in the Broadway production.

Part of Jeremy's costume was a 30-pound cape, which he said gave him "Dracula elbow" in his left arm from having to continually fling it around dramatically. He voiced another malady as well: "All that roaring -- I roar through all the show, you know -- is bad on the throat."

One serious comment Jeremy made about the role contained a great deal of foreshadowing: "You have to give the character up when you leave the theater. Count Dracula's an impossible character to live with on a day-to-day basis." He, of course, came to feel the same way about Sherlock Holmes.

Here are some more excerpts from an interview in the Chicago Tribune (full article in PDF) in which Jeremy discusses his views on playing Count Dracula:

We all come at it from a different angle. I thought I'd play it for the first time as if Count Dracula were in love. He says, "I'll set my Lucy above all else." My God, he's fallen in love. So I play this man who's gone out of control, who's become terribly careless and makes mistakes because he's got this girl under his skin. He's 500 years old and he's become a love-sick child.

He's a very sad creature, actually. I think he's very lonely and very old. He's deeply corrupted sexually. Sex is obviously his main preoccupation. Also he's hooked. He's an addict. It's terrible to be hooked on anything, and he's hooked on blood.

Speaking of sex, Jeremy discusses a scene in which he lifts the heroine and takes her to bed in an extremely sensual scene:

The scene amazes me. Here a man in a black velvet cape comes in the window with a blast of mist blowing in, and he seduces a girl on the bed, and there isn't a laugh or a titter in the place. I think it affects women terribly. To be swept off their feet, to be possessed, is their wildest dream. Men get an enormous fizz from it too.