In 1978, Terence Stamp and George Chakiris starred as Dracula in two rival productions running in London’s West End at the same time. DAVID TURNBULL tells the story of the Battle of the Bloodsuckers
It’s the summer of 1978. 1960s film icon Terence Stamp has just come out of several years of self-exile, spent living and working on various ashrams in India while studying transcendental meditation.
He has spent the previous year in Hollywood filming the role that will become his return to the big screen, that of General Zod in Superman II. Now he is about to make his West End theatrical return ahead of the film’s release.
The play is a new adaptation of Hamilton Deane’s ‘Dracula’, the 1920s sensation that formed the basis for the 1931 Universal Studios film starring Bela Lugosi.
This version, adapted by Denis Rosa, has already had a successful run on Broadway with American actor Frank Langella as Dracula (a role he will reprise in the 1979 movie version). Stamp will don a black velvet cape and resurrect the Carpathian Count on the London stage at the Shaftesbury Theatre.
Originally named the New Princes Theatre, the Shaftesbury name had been adopted in the 1960s in tribute to the original theatre destroyed during the Blitz and subsequently replaced by Soho fire station.
Amongst the cast, Van Helsing will be played by Derek Godfrey, who’d had roles in ‘The Abominable Dr. Phibes‘ (1971) and Hammer’s ‘Hands of the Ripper‘ (also 1971), while Lucy Seward will be played by Rosalind Ayres, who’d appeared in Amicus Productions’ ‘From Beyond the Grave‘ (1974).
Costume and set designs are by Edward Gorey, famed for his gothic alphabetic poem The Gashlycrumb Tinies (1963), which recounts the gruesome fates of 26 unfortunate children (“A is for Amy who fell down the stairs, B is for Basil assaulted by bears”).
All looks set for a runaway West End success.
What they haven’t counted on is a rival Dracula play about to launch farther along Shaftesbury Avenue.
‘The Passion of Dracula’ at the Queen’s Theatre (now the Sondheim) has its own big star, George Chakiris, famed for his role as Bernardo, leader of the Sharks, in the 1961 film version of West Side Story.
This version also has New York origins, having run for 1,000 performances at the Cherry Lane Theatre off-Broadway. It was written by Bob Hall and David Richmond, who followed it up with a theatrical adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
It was directed by Clifford Williams, who had previously used horror tropes such as torture, wax corpses, severed hands and mass murder in the 1971 Royal Shakespeare Company production of ‘The Duchess of Malfi’.
The play’s big innovation is a female version of Van Helsing, Dr Helga Van Zandt, played by Geraldine James. Alongside her, playing Wilhelmina Murray, is Beth Morris, whose horror credits include ‘Crucible of Terror’ (1971), ‘Tales That Witness Madness‘ (1973) and ‘Son of Dracula‘ (1974).
The Queen’s Theatre has its own horror credentials. In 1910, ‘The Duality of Man’, one of the first silent movie adaptations of Jekyll and Hyde, directed by Henry Irving’s son, had been filmed on its stage, converted into a film set.
The theatre also boasts its own ghost. Quite a cheeky one at that, which was said to pinch the bums of male actors waiting in the wings.
The stage was set for a showdown between Stamp and Chakiris. But who would win in this battle of the theatrical Draculas?
‘The Passion of Dracula’ had its opening night on 23 August 1978. By the time ‘Dracula’ opened at the Shaftesbury on 13 September, ‘Passion’ was already receiving positive reviews.
Critics preferred the play’s modern take on the story and many of them rated Chakiris’s interpretation of the vampiric Count over Stamp’s. In the weeks to come, ‘Passion’ maintained this early edge.
Dogged by low ticket sales, the Shaftesbury’s curtain fell for the final performance of ‘Dracula’ on 4 November. ‘Passion’, however, continued till 13 January 1979, notching up an impressive five-month run.
More disappointment awaited Stamp as studio wrangles had delayed the Superman II release. It wasn’t until 1980 that his villainous General Zod would be unleashed onto cinema screens.
Years later, when asked about his Dracula role during an interview, he commented wryly that at the time, “It seemed like a good idea”.
Stamp later revisited the streets around Shaftesbury Avenue in Edgar Wright’s acclaimed tribute to the horror films of the 1960s, ‘Last Night in Soho’ (2021).
George Chakiris, meanwhile, took on another vampire role, starring as the suave modern vampire Michael Fury in the independent horror noir ‘Pale Blood‘ (1990).
