Bumbling Around the World

When I left to study abroad in England, I expected to see castles and old forests. What I didn’t expect to see was a bald Ozzy Osborne calling himself Dracula as he climbed and crept around the ruined columns of an ancient monastery. Yet there he was, surrounded by an eager crowd of steam-punk soldiers, goths, and children.
This hysterical chaos was all a part of a play version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula at Whitby Abbey, a cluster of stone columns and about two-and-a-half Gothic walls that once made a whole abbey over a century ago. The performance was one of the festivities in the abbey that occurred during the annual Goth Weekend festival in Whitby, a port town in Northern Yorkshire County. The festival was a way to celebrate Halloween in which people from across Britain would dress in gothic and steampunk costumes and walk around town. The performance itself celebrated the influence Whitby had on Stoker as he wrote parts of his novel during his visits.
Three actors performed all of the roles in Stoker’s acclaimed novel, escorting the crowd of laughing locals and tourists throughout the ruins as they performed the different scenes. I watched as these actors disappeared as one character and reappeared in minutes wearing a new costume and dialect as the story progressed. The audience chuckled as these characters bantered with each other or themselves. Amongst our laughter marched in Dracula, his cold glare covered by circular red glasses. Vampire Ozzy was out for blood.
I’m not sure if it was common aspect of the performance any other day, but the actors broke the third-wall on numerous occasions. When Dr. Van Hellsing, who was played by the same actor who played Dracula, asked the audience what Dracula looked like, one of the kids said he looked like Dr. Van Hellsing. We all chuckled.
“Someone the other day said I looked like Elton John,” the actor responded in his own voice. I had never laughed so hard at a Gothic before that day.
While the abbey itself appeared to be a cluster of eroded chunks on top of a hill, the rising sun’s beams enhanced the remaining walls’ sense of everlasting strength and pride. The initial sight I had of the abbey for me was outside of it, where the rubble couldn’t be seen. I walked up a concrete staircase and saw a towering Gothic monastery. Its walls were carved with by numerous curved windows, a few containing slim intricate designs, and was held together by thick stone pillars that formed into fat spires.