Audible’s immersive, all-star audio adaptation of Bram Stoker’s iconic vampire story, Dracula, features Bridgerton’s Jonathan Bailey as the bloodthirsty count. “He is a Dracula for our age,” says director Mary Lambert, over a video call from New York, where she lives.
“The horror that Bailey brings to the character is of someone who has absolute control and power over your life and soul.” Mary Lambert, known for her work in the horror genre, including Pet Sematary, says it is something we experience in society right now because there are people who are so rich and powerful that they can do whatever they want.
“They can destroy nature, your job or your family. Jonathan brought that metaphor to Dracula. When he tells you what he is going to do, he does not act like a monster. The monster is within and you will feel it when you hear his performance.”
Obsessed with immortality
Having loved the Dracula story since she was a teenager, the 74-year-old director admitted to being excited about the project. “I’ve read the book many times, and the character of the vampire fascinates me. Our society is obsessed with the idea of immortality and being young forever. Honestly, plastic surgery, fillers, makeup, supplements and treatments just postpone the inevitable, which is death.”
Describing Dracula as a mythic character for our age, Mary says, “When I dived back into the material and Robyn’s (Ahern, writer) script, the book’s complexity was fascinating. It is not just about Dracula and sucking people’s blood. There is a very human love story between Mina, her husband and her best friend. Lucy and Mina have an almost erotic love for each other that is restrained because of society.”
Lucy, played by The White Lotus’s Aimee Lou Wood, has three suitors: Arthur Holmwood, John Seward, and Quincey Morris. “In most of the movies about Dracula, those relationships take second place to the central story of the vampire who has to be stopped at all costs.”
Mary Lambert | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
The reason he has to be stopped, Mary says, is because of the damage he is doing to these characters. “The more we get to know these characters, the more intensely you want them to survive.”
Laser focus
With the audio drama, there is time to get to know these characters, focus on their performances and give weight to characters that are not fully realised in a film, Mary says. “Dr. Seward, for example, is usually relegated to carrying the burden of exposition. In the audio version, because we record each character separately, it is possible to laser focus on each character and what they bring to the story.”
Seward is one of the main narrators of the novel, because he records his journals on something that was very new at the time in the late 1800s: a phonograph, Mary says with a laugh. “He’s so much more than an expositional character. At the beginning of the story, he loses the love of his life, Lucy, to his best friend Arthur. He’s the moral heart of the story. He forgives Arthur and Lucy, and remains their best friend. He ultimately sacrifices himself to kill Dracula and save them. David Jonsson plays Dr Seward, and he brought heart to a part of the story that is normally ignored.”
Centre stage
The adaptation places Mina, played by Fallout’s Ella Purnell, at the centre of Dracula. “She is the person who actually puts all the different pieces together to help Van Helsing understand that they are dealing with a vampire. She is important to the plot. She has the agency and drives the story. She is the one who isn’t going to give up Lucy and Harker.”
Mina, Mary says, continues to work with Van Helsing, even as she is fighting a losing battle with Dracula. “Mina has the strength of character to do all these things, but she’s also in a psychological battle with Dracula, who is attempting to possess her soul.”
Sometimes that is a metaphor for possessing someone sexually, Mary says. “The scenes where he’s trying to possess her feel sexual. It’s not, however, her body that he’s trying to possess. It is her soul. Her heart and her soul are so strong that she’s able to resist Dracula for a long time, and that’s what makes her so important to the story.”
Picture this
Mary is known for directing Madonna in iconic music videos from ‘Like a Virgin’ to ‘Material Girl’ and ‘La Isla Bonita’ and one of the biggest challenges of directing an audio drama was “no picture,” Mary says, laughing. “I’m a very visual person. I’m a painter. I like to look at paintings, nature and animals. I respond viscerally to visual stimulation, but I read a lot and I’ve been listening to audiobooks since they first were on tape many years ago.”
When listening to audiobooks, Mary says she vividly imagines the scenes. “That’s almost as good for me. It’s sometimes better than having someone else show me pictures because I’m seeing what’s there for me, and I’ve been doing this since I learned to read. I’ve also worked extensively in music videos, and I love music, so I have experience interpreting narrative material with sound. It’s going to take me a while to completely process this experience. Working intensely with actors is the bridge between film and audio drama.”
The only big change
Gender swapping Van Helsing, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, was the only big change made to the material, Mary says. “Van Helsing comes in with a very radical idea, which is that there has to be a balance between science and spirituality. Dr. Seward is the scientist, and Van Helsing is also a doctor. She’s a psychiatrist, but she knows that you can’t just heal a person physically. You have to heal them spiritually and mentally, or they will not get well.”
That, Mary says, is a particularly feminine trait. “That is why we need more women in positions of power. Women understand that there are spiritual mysteries that we can’t necessarily solve with science or machinery, and so I wanted to represent that element of a story through a woman.”
Dracula is available on Audible