Review: Vampyyrien tanssi

Dance of the Vampires is a bloody horror comedy

All you have to do is put garlic in your pockets, put a cross around your neck and watch the vampires in leather pants at the Peacock Theater! On Wednesday, February 3rd, I went out to eat and to the premiere of a musical with my cousin Janica. There were a lot of celebrities in the audience, which is always entertaining to watch.

I had prepared for the screening by first watching the American film The Fearless Vampire Killers (originally Dance of the Vampires) on the same day. The film, released in 1967 and directed by Polish-French director Roman Polański, is the inspiration for the musical Dance of the Vampires.

The horror comedy immediately gained cult status. Polánski says he got the idea for a horror comedy when he went to see horror movies and noticed that young viewers laughed at the most horrible parts.

Roman Polański and Sharon Tate, who play the lovers in the film, actually fell in love during filming and later got married. Unfortunately, the happiness lasted only a few years, as Sharon, who was only 26 years old and nine months pregnant, was murdered by the “Charles Mansen family” in 1969.

Polánski’s most award-winning films include Chinatown, Tess – A Story of Innocence and The Pianist, for which he received the Academy Award for Best Director. As famous as he is for his films, Polánski is accused of decades of evasion from US authorities, as he was charged in 1977 with the rape of a 13-year-old American girl.

The Dance of the Vampires musical follows the film quite faithfully, although with the big difference that the film is not a musical. Polánski himself directed the original production of the musical, Tanz der Vampire, in Vienna in 1997. Dance of the Vampires is thus a natural continuation of the Helsinki City Theatre’s safe but nevertheless successful way of bringing musicals that have been successful abroad to Finland for years.

The musical can be watched either as a horror romance or as a horror comedy. The musical isn’t particularly scary, though, although horror imagery has been used nicely as a visual element.

Vampires have been a very fashionable topic in entertainment since the 1990s and there has been talk of a vampire boom (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Twilight books and movies, True Blood TV series, The Vampire Diaries TV series…). However, as far as I can remember, vampires have not been seen in musicals.

The movie and the musical have a silly story, but it’s quite entertaining. The old professor Abronsius firmly believes in the existence of vampires, even though the rest of the scientific world has turned its back on him. Foolish and cowardly but thirsty for knowledge, Abronsius travels with his young and bright-eyed assistant Alfred to a village in Transylvania. Alfred falls in love with the innkeeper’s beautiful daughter, Sarah.

However, the girl has also caught the eye of the vampire count von Krolock, who lives in a nearby castle, and Sarah is also attracted to him. In the film, Sarah is kidnapped by a vampire count, but in the musical, Sarah has been made into a more functional character and she herself goes to the castle for a ball at the invitation of the count. Alfred and the professor follow to rescue Sarah and kill the vampires. The ending of the story is surprising, which is refreshing.

The musical makes an impression from the very beginning, when the audience gets to see the meticulously executed set of the inn. Set designers Jani Uljas and Jari Ijäs have done a good job, as has costume designer Elina Kolehmainen. Visually, the musical is brilliant, as both the costumes and the sets are made to the last detail. The singing scene from the vampire castle that opens the second half deserves a special mention, where the inventive sets are sure to surprise the viewer.

The actors are also skilled and funny. At the premiere, most of the attention was drawn to the charismatic vampire count played by the strong-voiced Mikko Vihma and the innocent Sarah, interpreted by the bright-voiced Raili Raitala. Their duo sent chills down my spine. Petrus Kähkönen as Alfred and Antti Timonen as Abronsius made the audience laugh the most with their jokes and funny expressions. Samuel Harjanne played the count’s excellent gay son Herbert.

The musical only really takes off after the intermission. Until then, the audience has had to wait for the vampires promised by the musical’s title – and then we get to see the vampires for real! The musical numbers are really compelling and captivating. Of course, the first half also features wonderful musical numbers, such as a dance where the stage is full of replicas of Sarah and the Vampire Count.

In both the film and the musical, however, the problem is the old-fashionedness of gender roles – and outright sexistness. There are only two types of female characters: vain young beauties and comical middle-aged cottage monsters. Sexism plagues the scenes of the first act in the inn. In defense, of course, you can say that the film is a product of its era (the 1960s) and the musical is already from the 1990s, when the position of women was worse than it is today.

Sarah, the daughter of the innkeeper, is a 17-year-old girl who gets punched in the butt by her father as punishment! Sarah also shows off naked in the bath every now and then, but the male characters are not seen half-dressed. Alfred peers at the breasts of the inn’s young maid. Sarah’s father, concerned about her chastity, constantly approaches a reluctant maid of his daughter’s age. The purpose of sexual harassment is to be funny to the viewer, not horrible…

Still, the musical has been brought into modern times so that Sarah herself wants to escape to the vampire count and to the freedom she imagines. Sarah’s foolhardiness can be attributed to her overprotective parents, who have been able to raise their daughter’s thirst for freedom to the limit by locking her in their room.

In the musical, the maid also eventually starts to like the innkeeper, while in the movie, the master just finally forces the maid to swing. Piia’s character is a passive victim in the film, but in the musical, she also eventually falls in love – albeit with a married person! – the owner of the inn.

What is already modern in the film is that Alfred is a nerdy, kind and shy male hero. He just doesn’t have what it takes to compete for Sarah’s attention with the confident vampire count.

The musical has a strong sexual charge throughout, and the attraction between Sarah and the vampire count is palpable. Sarah’s sexual awakening even has empowering elements.

Already in the film, the vampire count’s servant Koukol, who is hunchbacked and lame, caught my eye. Once again, the evil character has been made physically lame, as if physical deformity also corresponds to mental deficiencies. Such characters do not do justice to the disabled.

In the musical, none of the “good guys” are disabled. While Quasimodo, the bell ringer of Notre Dame, is a kind-hearted and even saintly character (although this is a cliché with a disability), the humpback Koukol of Dance of the Vampires is repulsive. Of course, the challenging role of Koukoli is well played by Juha Jokela.

The direction and choreography are by the experienced Markku Nenonen, and I really liked the musical Billy Elliot, which he directed for Peacock last August. The conductor is Eeva Kontu.

Dance of the Vampires was composed by Jim Steinman from the United States. The original, German-language songs have been written by Czech Michael Kunze, whose musical Rebecca I liked a lot when it was in the Helsinki City Theatre’s repertoire in 2008-2009. The musical has been translated into Finnish by Marika Hakola. The Finnish premiere of Dance of the Vampires took place at the Seinäjoki City Theatre in 2011.