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Dracula: Lucy’s Dream isn’t just another Gothic retelling; it’s a plunge into the mind of a woman literature usually sidelines. Plexus Polaire take Lucy Westenra — often treated as a plot device — and place her centre‑stage, letting her fear, desire and disintegration shape the world around her. Their work has always lived in the space between the real and the uncanny, and here that tension becomes the point: puppetry, physical theatre and dream logic colliding to show us what Lucy sees when the lights go out. It’s dark, sensual, and strangely tender. And it asks a simple question: what happens when the girl everyone thinks they understand finally tells her own story?
We spoke with the creators about why Lucy matters, and what it means to let her speak.
What made you realise Lucy — often treated as a narrative stepping stone — was actually the emotional heart you wanted to excavate?
Lucy is a fascinating character because she goes through a real transformation. The other characters in Stoker´s novel are very much focused on themselves being “the good” who are fighting “the bad”. Lucy has more internal fight and her story opens for a more complex treatment of the theme and how we fight with dark forces within ourselves. By seeing the story from Lucy´s perspective she can break out of the role as a victim, take control of her own life, and reclaim her own narrative.
Puppetry allows you to express things human bodies alone can’t. What did it unlock in Lucy’s inner world?
I am interested in the parallel between a how myth, like Dracula, and a puppet comes to life, because it is quite similar. It´s a bit like a spiritual session with an Ouija-board, where everyone puts a finger on a glass on top of an alphabet, and then the glass starts moving on its own and spells out a message from beyond. Everyone knows that it probably someone in the group who is guiding the glass, but the small doubt, that it might be moving on its own, or by an external force, is enough to make us believe it is true.
The show is a descent into desire, fear and female emancipation. How do you navigate that tension?
The tension and the complexity of the theme is what makes it interesting, and also more truthful.
The ambition of the show is not to give fixed answers, but rather to provoke important questions.
Approaching Dracula from a female lens reveals contradictions — desire, fear, seduction, danger. Which contradiction fascinated you most?
What interests me the most is how you can lose control over a situation, and how quickly the situation can take control over you. And that a vampire can come in many forms.
You describe the Fringe as a “living, breathing organism.” What does it mean to bring a piece this dark and sensual into that environment?
It means to possibility to show for a larger audience that puppetry can be large scale performances for adults.
Lucy’s psychosis becomes a landscape audiences inhabit. What emotional truth were you trying to reveal?
The show delves into the schemes of power with the conclusion that you sometimes have to put a stake in the heart of the vampire to regain control over your own life.
Vampires are metaphors for forbidden desire. What drew you to the question of what we want but cannot say aloud?
I think that sometimes we have to face a monster to remain human. And we all have an inner vampire in one form or another; an addiction, a trauma, a destructive need…The interesting thing is to see how we can choose to break the role of being a victim of it, and retake control over our own narrative.
Plexus Polaire often deals with the secret parts of human nature. What “immortal dark secret” were you most interested in exposing?
I´m interested in the complexities, and how the dark parts are actually a part of what makes us human.
The production is visually overwhelming — puppets, video, lighting, movement. How do you keep the emotional core intact?
The life-like puppets express emotion, in combination to the five actor-puppeteers who perform on stage.
If Lucy could step out of the dream and meet you, what truth do you hope she’d finally allow herself to claim?
That it wasn´t a dream.
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