Carmilla (Wildclaw Theatre) JOHN TAFLAN

The theater is not just a place for you to forget your troubles or listen to someone else’s. As a regular theater attendee, I can tell you that if you look closely enough, you will find the stage bursting with nuggets of practical, easy-to-understand advice:

*Opera singers are best when trained by mutilated psychopaths in masks.

*Buffalo nickels are easier to steal when junkies aren’t around.

* Cowboys always sing about the states they live in.

* People like to fall in love with each other.

Sure, on its surface a show may appear to be “entertaining” (what with the tap-dancing, talking, and Brian Dennehy). Deep in its core, however, a play can whisper life-lessons to its audiences…as long as they know how to listen.

That’s why I am thrilled to bring my semi-regular series, Advyce is quite Nyce to the Reviews you can Iews family (unofficially, that is). After we get through all that red tape at the FCC, we’ll be rearing to go in full force. Until that day, please enjoy a taste of what’s to come.

Nyce Advyce #6: Carmilla

Wildclaw’s Carmilla—now in its bodice-annihilating debut at the Department of Tourism’s Cultural Council on the State of the Arts Storefront Theater— is a bloody, sexy, soul-shattering trip that is actually a sensible, down-to-earth guide for young women entering the terrifying mausoleum of pubescence.

What advyce does Carmilla have for our budding daughters? I’m glad you asked:

1. Girls should not make new friends. I know, ladies. I know. It seems so embarrassingly obvious. But if you introduce an “x” factor into your already perfect world, it’s pretty much a guarantee that you will feel hot feelings, question your pre-ordained life-journey and end up bleeding in a cemetery like Brittany Burch (especially if the factor being introduced to happens to be a walking, talking “x”-machine).

2. If a girl does make a new friend (by accident or something), it certainly should not be with an alluring stranger played by Michaela Petro. You will get your ass seduced and thoroughly kicked.

3. Don’t sleep on vampire tombs in graveyards. This one’s a little tougher to stick to. Once you get used to a limestone slab coolly nestling your soft, pink body, heaven help you if you try to go back to hay. I really can’t stress the importance of this enough, though. Sleeping on vampire tombs in graveyards leaves the door wide open for Erin Myers to watch you get drained of your precious fluids while you sleep. And you really don’t want to end up half-naked, bleeding, and roaming the woods like Sara Gorsky.

4. Gypsy paranoia should always be trusted. Yes, they have humps. Can we all just get over it? These mangled souls seem to know exactly what’s up in the world of supernatural sucking with a 90% success rate. Just don’t catch them at a wedding or when they’re about to consummate anything. Scott Barsotti, Allie Kunkler, and Josh Zagoren can attest to that; Allie can twice.

5. Fathers should always look under strange women’s veils. You never know how much trouble it could save you, Charley Sherman. Modesty be damned. The next time you see a woman hiding under some lace, take a yank and see what happens. You may end up discovering your wife.

6. Doctors think smearing blood around abandoned estates solves everything. And it does. Thank you, Steve Herson.

7. Older French and English women are an excellent temporary distraction from any sudden homosexual tendencies you may experience. When you feel a tinge of animal lust for your same-sex friend whom you just met, take a walk down to the tea-swilling, cross-stitching cottage of Moira Begale-Smith and Mandy Walsh. You’ll forget all about your troubles until they find you and seduce you under the full moon.

8. When a new friend is being a little too needy, call a sad German. So you made a new friend and now she wants you to spend eternity with her as some sort of slave. What are you gonna do? Call a sad German. Wotan’s mighty descendants have sensitive sides, too. All it takes is a broken shoelace or a massacred niece to send them into a teary, saber-swinging rage. Step back and watch the Brian Amidei magic as your new friend (and most of your old friends) are torn limb-from-limb in an orgy of spine-ripping and head-cutting-offing.

Now wasn’t that nyce advyce?

Carmilla: A-

- John Taflan