ATLANTA BALLET.

ATLANTA BALLET FOX THEATRE, ATLANTA OCTOBER 23-NOVEMBER 1, 1998

For all of its drawbacks as a live performance space, Atlanta's Fox Theatre--a monstrously sized (4,500 seats) movie house dating from the 1920s--is an ideal setting for Count Dracula.

Dark, dank, and rife with faded Victorian touches, it is a cold, cavernous space with lighting so poor you can barely read the program notes.

But try to get through the synopsis. Otherwise, only aficionados of Brain Stoker's 1897 novel will have a clue as to what goes on in Dracula, a U.S. premiere by Atlanta Ballet imported from England's Northern Ballet Theatre [see Reviews/International, December 1996, page 114]. Directed by the late Christopher Gable and choreographed by Michael Pink, NBT's artistic director and associate artistic director, respectively, the ballet is long on mood but short on a comprehensible story line. Dracula also needs a good editor in the ensemble sections.

Much has been made of the ballet's theatricality, and in some ways it does seem a graceful merger of theater and ballet. The Atlanta dancers acquitted themselves quite respectably, and some of the special effects played wonderfully in the Fox. Wei Dongsheng's Dracula was magnificent--long-limbed and lanky, sporting a flowing, blood-red cape, he swooped and swooned over his victims, his arms outstretched behind him like same monstrous, terrifying bird of prey.

His Act I fight with Jonathan Harker (John Welker) was spine chilling, as Harker, shiftless but otherwise in business attire, scrambled on the defensive, looking horrified, small, and achingly vulnerable, especially against the larger-than-life hollows of Lez Brotherston's chilling set. Paul Pyant's lighting was evocative but far too minimal. At times--the train station, the villagers' dance, Lucy's first duet with Dracula, the crypt--one literally could not see the stage action for lack of light (not to mention the Fox's lousy sight lines).

Among the highlights: Julianne Kepley, dancing with her usual inner light and total immersion in character (Lucy); artistic director-CEO John McFall's pure dementia as Renfield, whether catching flies (to eat, of course) or lifting Mina Harker with his arms secured behind him in a straitjacket, in a touching pas de deux; Christine Winkler's projected delicacy as the lovely, forgiving Mina.

Philip Feeney's original score provoked or furthered every evolving mood. The orchestra, led by music director Robert Chumbley, could have used more rehearsal and was poorly amplified.

RELATED ARTICLE: NATIONAL VIEW

Every Halloween, choreographer Nancy Smith and her Frequent flyers Productions enter the mysterious world of the undead in her Theatre of the Vampires (Auditorium Theatre, Denver Performing Arts Complex, October 30, 1998), loosely based on Anne Rice's novels. Smith's extraordinary, adept cast (notably Kirstin Taylor, Jenn Zukowski, and a creepy R. Bryan Meeks) spins and scrambles up and down the trapezes and into the flies--without a net--with non-chalance and simian ease. Two women (Kaile Larson, Valerie Morris) share a clever and languid duet inside a large swinging coffin. Meek's agonized solo as the evening's first victim astounds: suspended by one arm in a tucked position, he convulses for several scary minutes. Sweetly sinister emcee Jon Held convinces a curious American reporter (the stunning Beth Osnes) to join their revels, their story a touching counterpoint to the rest of the action: performers chewing happily--not on the scenery, but each other.

Janine Gastineau