Vampire movies and horses...both thrill teenage girls.
After I had seen Frank Langella's "Dracula", I was enraptured. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to expand upon the tune and words in my head - a love song to Dracula....
Do we think the Polidori in Amelia is a direct connection?
I loved this for so many reasons and, yes, I want that kit, too!
First of all, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is genius. One of the reasons we are in Italy at all is that we are friends with the actors John Pankow and his wife Kristine Sutherland. They were the first people we stayed with. Kristine was Buffy's mother. (They live near Spoletto). Kristine, by the way is a great photographer.
When Henry Fielding, at the time the greatest actor in England, bought the Lyceum Theatre in London, he turned over the running of the theatre to his stage manager, one Bram Stoker. Stoker wrote Dracula, while he was putting shows on.
All that pining away for someone you can't have. We are driven to that by our bodies. Not that I don't have the pand every once in a while, but being on the other side of that is a blessed relief!
THAT SOUND YOU HEAR IS ME HYPERVENTILATING. Buffy’s Mom and Merc Lapidus????? Are you kidding???? And they’re HERE?
I can’t even with this. I don’t know what to do with myself. And THEY were instrumental to YOU being in Umbria!!!!
First, if you only knew what BTVS means to me. AND Episodes is John’s and my favorite comedy series. Pankow is a brilliant actor, and Kristine Sutherland is a genius actor attached to a genius project (even if Whedon is a creep). I am geeking/fan girling all over the place. I may kiss the hem of your garment. OMG!
As far as Polidori goes, I am quite certain the Polidori’s here are sprigs from the same branch. I loved your Lyceum Theater anecdote. You always have the best stories.
Where can I see Kristine’s photos? Does she show anywhere? This is the coolest thing EVER!
Oh, I've been meaning to mention this for a while now, but only today remembered to pester the one person I knew who would remember the title of the film: Haunted Summer -- I'm guessing you already know of it, though I don't recall you ever mentioning it.
I started watching it about a year ago, but there were so many inaccuracies, and it was so unnecessarily gabby, I quickly lost interest. Nothing in the historical document says that the Villa Diodati convergence was all sex and drugs. That, I'm afraid, is a bunch of know-nothing writers/directors/producers jumping the shark because they lacked the talent to do a psychological deep dive on what was really happening.
You KNOW, of course, that all historians, myself included, are IMPOSSIBLE. We all have an ax to grind.
I've seen pictures of the "vampire kit," and recall the story that there was a pre-Stoker story, but none of the details. I was disabused young of any notion that obsessing on another person (girl/woman, in my case) would ever end well, and reading of these sad young people who get fixated on another as their entire existence always leaves me feeling empty. I can neither blame them for their stupidity nor feel any real identification with their situation.
I mean, it is not love they are experiencing but obsession, and the latter is an ugly and destructive state. I mean, there is a selfishness and self-absorption to obsession that sees one's self as the bright, shining center of the universe and the other, the object of obsession MUST understand that as well. And if they do not, it ends in destruction: self destruction, other destruction, or both. Unless you think "The Graduate" is romantic, and then being an obsessed stalker is OK and ends well ...
The vampire story is a story of obsession, and it is a singularly chilling mirror image of Christianity. Jesus shed blood to give life to all, the vampire takes blood to give life to self.
I LOVE what you wrote here, and I couldn't agree with it more. That kind of love is pure narcissism. Erotic/romance obsession is pure narcissism. Real love is something else. Your analogy, too, (vampire vs. Jesus) is apt. Perhaps we have all been bitten by vampires?
Great piece, Stacey! I'm not a fan of vampire stories, but one of the most stunning ballets I got to write about at San Francisco Ballet was Liam Scarlett's Frankenstein. I read Mary Shelley's novel as research, and holy cow, what a book! (Can't believe I hadn't read it before then.) A monster story on the outside and a deep rumination on love on the inside—and what happens when it's withheld. I wonder if Shelley thought of Polidori at all as she wrote it. Anyway, thanks for a very interesting piece. I'll have to investigate poor Polidori.
Oooooooh! I would love, love, love to see that ballet. I'm a shameless balletomane, but I'm not sure I could sit through another one of the classics. I've seen them too many times. But Frankenstein I've never seen, and I can only imagine how magnificent that must have been.
Ack! It actually made me emotional to watch that. The score is a bit overwrought for my taste, but the ART DIRECTION! Holy cow! I think Mary Shelley would have been moved to tears. I certainly was.
I interviewed the designer, John Mcfarlane, and it was fascinating to hear him talk about his ideas and implementing them. The front curtain is a skull that seems to rotate 90 degrees, colors change a bit, etc. It's really brilliant what he did. And if that scene made you choke up, you should see the pas de deux for Frankenstein and the monster. You'd weep.
Ohhhh! More fun stuff to look up!
I have NO idea who the Rossetti's are/we're. I barely know anything about the de Medici and Borgias
I decided long ago that there are only so many facts I can stuff into my cranium. Right?
Vampire movies and horses...both thrill teenage girls.
After I had seen Frank Langella's "Dracula", I was enraptured. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to expand upon the tune and words in my head - a love song to Dracula....
Dracula! Come on and bite my neck!
Take me to the land of the Living Dead.
Never made beyond LOL
SAMESIES. Did you have a roomful of those Breyer horse figurines? I was obsessed.
I think you need to finish that love song to Dracula ;-)
Yeah? I've been trying to finish it for 50 years! LOL
But I just might give it another shot, since I'm older, wiser and don't give a damn what anyone else things!!!
PS - Poladori was very handsome...perhaps the painting can inspire me!
Right? AND he was related to the Rossettis, so a pretty impressive lineage!
Do we think the Polidori in Amelia is a direct connection?
I loved this for so many reasons and, yes, I want that kit, too!
First of all, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is genius. One of the reasons we are in Italy at all is that we are friends with the actors John Pankow and his wife Kristine Sutherland. They were the first people we stayed with. Kristine was Buffy's mother. (They live near Spoletto). Kristine, by the way is a great photographer.
When Henry Fielding, at the time the greatest actor in England, bought the Lyceum Theatre in London, he turned over the running of the theatre to his stage manager, one Bram Stoker. Stoker wrote Dracula, while he was putting shows on.
All that pining away for someone you can't have. We are driven to that by our bodies. Not that I don't have the pand every once in a while, but being on the other side of that is a blessed relief!
THAT SOUND YOU HEAR IS ME HYPERVENTILATING. Buffy’s Mom and Merc Lapidus????? Are you kidding???? And they’re HERE?
I can’t even with this. I don’t know what to do with myself. And THEY were instrumental to YOU being in Umbria!!!!
First, if you only knew what BTVS means to me. AND Episodes is John’s and my favorite comedy series. Pankow is a brilliant actor, and Kristine Sutherland is a genius actor attached to a genius project (even if Whedon is a creep). I am geeking/fan girling all over the place. I may kiss the hem of your garment. OMG!
As far as Polidori goes, I am quite certain the Polidori’s here are sprigs from the same branch. I loved your Lyceum Theater anecdote. You always have the best stories.
Where can I see Kristine’s photos? Does she show anywhere? This is the coolest thing EVER!
That vampire-hunting kit looks serious. I have to assume it comes with a silver bullet, no??
LOL! Wouldn't you LOVE having something like that? My God, it's worth ten times as much as it sold for.
Oh, I've been meaning to mention this for a while now, but only today remembered to pester the one person I knew who would remember the title of the film: Haunted Summer -- I'm guessing you already know of it, though I don't recall you ever mentioning it.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095280/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
I started watching it about a year ago, but there were so many inaccuracies, and it was so unnecessarily gabby, I quickly lost interest. Nothing in the historical document says that the Villa Diodati convergence was all sex and drugs. That, I'm afraid, is a bunch of know-nothing writers/directors/producers jumping the shark because they lacked the talent to do a psychological deep dive on what was really happening.
You KNOW, of course, that all historians, myself included, are IMPOSSIBLE. We all have an ax to grind.
I've seen pictures of the "vampire kit," and recall the story that there was a pre-Stoker story, but none of the details. I was disabused young of any notion that obsessing on another person (girl/woman, in my case) would ever end well, and reading of these sad young people who get fixated on another as their entire existence always leaves me feeling empty. I can neither blame them for their stupidity nor feel any real identification with their situation.
I mean, it is not love they are experiencing but obsession, and the latter is an ugly and destructive state. I mean, there is a selfishness and self-absorption to obsession that sees one's self as the bright, shining center of the universe and the other, the object of obsession MUST understand that as well. And if they do not, it ends in destruction: self destruction, other destruction, or both. Unless you think "The Graduate" is romantic, and then being an obsessed stalker is OK and ends well ...
The vampire story is a story of obsession, and it is a singularly chilling mirror image of Christianity. Jesus shed blood to give life to all, the vampire takes blood to give life to self.
I LOVE what you wrote here, and I couldn't agree with it more. That kind of love is pure narcissism. Erotic/romance obsession is pure narcissism. Real love is something else. Your analogy, too, (vampire vs. Jesus) is apt. Perhaps we have all been bitten by vampires?
Or the vampires and Jesus thing: def not original to me. I don't recall where I first read it, but it made a lot of sense to me at the time.
If I was, I can pretty near guarantee it was a case of "spits" rather than "swallows."
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Great piece, Stacey! I'm not a fan of vampire stories, but one of the most stunning ballets I got to write about at San Francisco Ballet was Liam Scarlett's Frankenstein. I read Mary Shelley's novel as research, and holy cow, what a book! (Can't believe I hadn't read it before then.) A monster story on the outside and a deep rumination on love on the inside—and what happens when it's withheld. I wonder if Shelley thought of Polidori at all as she wrote it. Anyway, thanks for a very interesting piece. I'll have to investigate poor Polidori.
Oooooooh! I would love, love, love to see that ballet. I'm a shameless balletomane, but I'm not sure I could sit through another one of the classics. I've seen them too many times. But Frankenstein I've never seen, and I can only imagine how magnificent that must have been.
Here's a taste: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaWdD_IOino
Ack! It actually made me emotional to watch that. The score is a bit overwrought for my taste, but the ART DIRECTION! Holy cow! I think Mary Shelley would have been moved to tears. I certainly was.
I interviewed the designer, John Mcfarlane, and it was fascinating to hear him talk about his ideas and implementing them. The front curtain is a skull that seems to rotate 90 degrees, colors change a bit, etc. It's really brilliant what he did. And if that scene made you choke up, you should see the pas de deux for Frankenstein and the monster. You'd weep.
GAH! You’re killing me!