The Alley Cat Players brought an oddly beautiful work to Bay area audiences when they staged Mac Wellman's Swoop under the stars at the Viva La Frida Café y Galeria. Constructed as a series of monologues, Swoop introduced us to four vampires: Dracula (Steve Mountan), the "higher nature" of Wilhemina Murray (Roz Potenza), Wilhemina's id (Teresa Elena Gallar), and Lucy Westenra (Arrianna Thompson). What they offered was an exceedingly verbal, only half-comprehensible theme and variations on the subject of vampirism. Depressed, depraved Dracula presented himself as an antiquarian (a collector of lunar eclipses), an imbiber of "geezer gas" (real nutrition for the undead), and a creature condemned to bite even against his better nature. Mina One warned us that the Count had "gone gaga," and admitted that nothing thrilled her more than eating plump, white housecats; while Mina Two decried the difficulty of distinguishing house cats from tomcats at 7 miles up. Finally, Lucy told us that she was "the happiest girl who ever trod the surface of the Moving World, or put tooth to vein" — and then went on to speak unintelligibly about "the riddle of turbulence" and "molecular derision." What it all meant was never the question. As Dracula told us, "It is, indeed, a world of blur that hovers beneath our dancing feet." And in a notably blurred world, Swoop was the most tantalizing performance of the whole season.
This article appears in Sep 25 – Oct 1, 2003.