Edinburgh Fringe 2026
Dracula: Lucy’s Dream
Plexus Polaire
Genre: Theatre
Venue: Pleasance at EICC
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Lucy Westenra is centred in this haunting reinvention of the heart-pounding gothic horror about obsession, control and the demon inside. Reality fractures as Lucy drifts between dream and nightmare, victim and liberator. Life-sized puppets and human performers collide with original music and cinematic video in an intoxicating descent into desire, fear and female emancipation.
Review
Loosely based on Bram Stoker’s well known Dracula story, award-winning Plexus Polaire tells the story from Lucy’s point of view. French-Norwegian company Plexus Polaire is led by Yngvild Aspeli, artistic director who focuses on telling visual stories from a different point of view, an alternate way of seeing things. Aspeli and her company has created and produced several critically acclaimed productions that have run in the UK, Europe and recently, the USA. Aspeli’s storytelling is richly visual, immersive and physical, with inventive puppetry that always takes the audience on a journey of imagery and exciting sound evoking different moods and situations. Mainly non-verbal with brief dialogue the shows also have an international cast.
In Dracula: Lucy’s Dream we meet Lucy – and eventually other characters – Lucy is living in a Victorian society where social behaviour is strict but she feels there is something she is missing in life! She says she loves the night time. Desire is often repressed, but the character of Dracula, is seen from another point of view here. What follows is nothing but a feast of sensory movement, puppetry and masterful storytelling! A reverie of characters, fleeting bats and electric atmosphere explodes and then melts across the stage as everything and everyone wafts in front of us, emoting stunningly and the story moves on through the night, and what a night it is!
Who is Lucy and why are there three Lucy’s on stage? This is an abstract storytelling of the well brought up young lady, Lucy Westenra from the gothic horror story that focuses on exploring obsession, control and one’s inner desires. With outstanding mise en scène by Yngvild Aspeli, the cast of five actor-puppeteers create it all in front of us and are able to successfully transport us to another time and place. Are we watching actors or life-size puppets? It is impossible to tell sometimes – this suspension of disbelief is rarely found in theatrical productions but is very present in the expert hands of Plexus Polaire. The advantage of life-size puppets is that they can do the impossible – like fly – or disintegrate, creating magical visual effects that supersede one’s expectations.
Original music composed by Ane Marthe Sørlien Holen is haunting, ethereal, dramatic and lyrical contributing to the sensory and intimate dream-like and at times nightmarish qualities of the production. A dark lighting design with piercing red sequences perfectly highlight characters as they appear and disappear in a flash, leaving us sometimes unsure of what we saw – human or not – and highlights different parts of the stage such as when a group of columns advances and retreats in sequence, or all red as the dream gets tangled in reality. Lucy’s floaty white nightdress and the other costumes designed by Benjamin Moreau are effective and leave memorable images during scenes of the three Lucy’s and other dream states. Video projections complete the picture adding depth of texture to the vibrant imagery of this production.
Manipulating life-size puppets so that they seem real is a large part of this production and Aspeli has studied human movement and transfers it to inanimate objects, successfully bringing them to life! Their heads tilt up and down as a human’s does, the flowing movement of arms and legs move as a human and Lucy is able to switch between a life-size puppet and a human almost instantly. The other life-size puppet, the transforming Dracula character is intricate and sophisticated in design and movement capabilities, very well manipulated by the talented cast. A flurry of bats, almost transparent looking rod puppets fly across the stage, as well as other objects that are brought to life by puppeteers.
Dracula: Lucy’s Dream is an outstanding production created and imagined by Yngvild Aspeli and her company Plexus Polaire. It is part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2026 and could easily be part of any international festival world wide. Achieving an exceptional level of theatrical creativity, imaginative theatre making and accomplishment, Plexus Polaire is significant in the world of theatre. Do not miss this, or any of their shows! Outstanding!!!
