Review: ‘Courting Vampires’ at Boston Court

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Laura Schellhardt’s new drama ‘Courting Vampires,’ at the Boston Court, is a boldly conceptual and ambitious character study about a woman’s attempt to save her sister from the grips of a blood-sucking predator. But the play suffers from long-winded abstraction that renders its storyline in overly abstruse dramatic strokes.

The play takes place entirely in the head of its protagonist (Carey Peters), an uptight fact-checker at a small newspaper. Her little sister (Maya Lawson) is her opposite in every way -- vivacious, sensual and reckless. When a strange blood disease takes hold of the younger sibling, it’s up to her big sister to seek out the vampire who infected her.

Director Jessica Kubzansky has staged the play with intelligence, keeping the action moving and the characters in a constant state of agitation. The innovative sets by Kurt Boetcher mix dreamscapes with concrete settings, and the results are starkly beautiful. Actor Bo Foxworth is particularly memorable for playing all of the male roles in a remarkable display of versatility.

But the material that they serve is too amorphous and conceptually vague to make much of a dramatic impact. The story meanders for much too long and the playwright over-intellectualizes what is essentially a genre play. It’s strange that a drama about bloodthirsty vampires should itself feel so bloodless.

-- David Ng

‘Courting Vampires,’ Theatre @ Boston Court, 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Ends June 7. (626) 683-6883. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

Caption: Carey Peters and Bo Foxworth in ‘Courting Vampires.’ Credit: Ed Krieger