Grzegorz Jarzyna’s unique take on the Dracula legend will keep trying to wake the audience up at BAM through November 2 (photo by Stefan Okolowicz)
Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St. between Ashland & Rockwell Pl.
Through November 2, $20-$65
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
Somehow, in trying to create a fresh new way for audiences to experience the familiar vampire tale of Nosferatu, aka Dracula, theater master Grzegorz Jarzyna ended up with an absurdly slow-paced and downright dull production. Running at the BAM Harvey through November 2, TR Warszawa and Teatr Narodowy’s multimedia Nosferatu starts out well enough, establishing a contemporary social context while introducing the main characters in a large room with three floor-to-ceiling oval windows, two beds, a long table, and numerous mirrors with drastically different reflective qualities. But after a lively beginning, things slow down to sleep-inducing levels as a bland vampire preys on this small group of friends who at first discuss science, religion, fear, and death in intriguing, nonlinear ways before things give way to frustration, confusion, and boredom. Jarzyna, who has adapted such other works as Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus, Thomas Vinterberg’s Festen, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, and, together, Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Molière’s Don Juan, sucks the life out of the vampire legend over the course of 110 intermissionless, interminable minutes, leaving behind little more than smoke and mirrors.