Dracula of Transylvania

HARKER You certainly have a home o beautiful artifacts. Have you no concern of robbers? Thieves who may…uh,.. DRACULA Steal from me? Take my possessions? HARKER Well, I only meant… DRACULA I know what you meant. A very long time ago, I had my belongings, my family, my life, everything that I cherish taken from me. HARKER I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I trust those thieves have been rightly confined and prosecuted. (An eerie music eases in to underscore Dracula’s following passages. All about him lights fade and a red glowing light comes up gradually, illuminating the Count who grows increasingly angry, defensive, defiant.) DRACULA What do you know about it? How does one begin to express a lifetime’s existence of persecution? My family, my people, the Szekelys, were a proud race. We bore down from Iceland, the fighting spirit of Thor. But the Turks poured their thousands upon our frontiers. We were beaten down upon a bloody field. Their warlike fury swept the earth like a living flame. We thought the werewolves themselves had come. Like ancient witches who had mated with devils in the desert, they sought to destroy us. But what devil or witch was ever so great as Attila, whose blood flows through these veins?! I would not rest until I’d tasted their blood upon our swords! HARKER Your people were brave. DRACULA Brave?! I demanded it! My fellow countrymen, Romanians of old, the common peasants were divided. And I, a Dracul, had to unify Transylvania to protect it. So, I threatened every man, woman, and child with torture beyond imagination if they would not join me. If they did not rise and fight to death, under my rule, they would suffer a fate worse than Hell itself! Yes, there were dissenters. And mere intimidation would no longer suffice. So, I had to teach them to obey. HARKER How? DRACULA We invaded their camps in the dark of night, blinded them, nailed them one to another. Their precious children were pulled apart by horses. We left them writing in agony amongst the flames of scorched earth. You understand, I did this for my people. I had no choice. We could only rise to ultimate power if Romania swore undying allegiance to me. It did. So this was the Dracula who saw an entire nation of Turks impaled upon a forest of crimson. And I myself drove the spikes! HARKER I believe I’m finished with dinner. DRACULA You must think me an eccentric old man. But, you see, Mr. Harker, to a Szekely, a Dracul, the pride of his house and name springs eternal. And therefore I say “Woe be unto him that will come into my home, feast of my table, rest his skull upon my pillows, and wrong me!” To steal my possessions, to desecrate my name, is to incur the wrath of a thousand years. I would, while he were sleeping like a babe, drag him by the throat to an altar! As a lamb to be slaughtered. And I would prove his butcher! (Lighting restores and music ends. There is silence.) DRACULA Sleep well, my friend. And pleasant dreams. (Music, Dracula takes Harker’s eating untensils, places them back into the small ornate chest. (The purpose for this is so that Harker will not have access to a knife or other implements which may be used against the old count.) Dracula exits. As Dracula ascends the staircase, he waves a hand at the door to his room. It magically opens. Once he passes through, it closes behind him. A beat, then Harker rises to ascend the steps to his bedchamber. He stops, turns to look at the castle doors. He goes to them in haste and attempts to turn the handles. They are locked in place. He attempts to shoulder the doors open to no avail. He realizes he is trapped. Defeated, he grabs his bags and heads to his bedchamber. He exits into a gothic arched doorway in his room, presumably, the privy. Music leads us into the next scene.) [END OF SCENE]