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Kyla Vaughan, Birdie LaBarre, Julia Fire and Sydney Hall, from left, in Madison Public Theatre's production of 'Dracula, A Feminist Revenge Fantasy. Really.'
Kyla Vaughan, Birdie LaBarre, Julia Fire and Sydney Hall, from left, resist masculine power in Madison Public Theatre's production of 'Dracula, A Feminist Revenge Fantasy. Really.'
Is a contemporary take on Bram Stoker’s 1897 gothic novel Dracula overdue?
Kate Hamill’s Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy. Really. reimagines the classic tale by flipping the script, calling out misogynistic and hypermasculine themes vividly — and sometimes comically. In Hamill’s stage version, characters' gender roles are refashioned to question the nature of marriage, men in power and patriarchal society.
Madison Public Theatre’s production of Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy. Really., performed on the Evjue Stage at the Bartell Theatre, executes Hamill’s vision with dexterity.
The reimagined tale opens as Jonathan Harker (Copper Petermeier) departs for Transylvania on business, leaving behind his pregnant and loyal wife, Mina (Kyla Vaughan). On his trip, Harker visits the mysterious Count Dracula (Nathaniel Klein) and soon discovers his host’s supernatural powers and sinister intentions. Meanwhile, Mina visits her friend Lucy Westenra (Birdie La Barre) in a sleepy seaside town in England.
In Hamill’s adaptation, Lucy and Mina’s reunion is fashioned as a “girls’ trip,” granting the space for candid, woman-to-woman conversations about love, autonomy, and the role of men in their lives. Lucy reveals her doubts about marriage and confusing dissatisfaction with a suitor, Dr. Seward (Brian Standing).
Dracula begins to haunt Lucy, pulling her under his tormenting control. Lucy’s ensuing fits and fever dreams terrify Mina, who calls for the help of Seward, head of an institution for “the mentally insane.” When Seward fails to determine Lucy’s condition, Van Helsing (Stephanie Monday) enters the scene.
Here, Van Helsing — male, in Stoker’s novel — is an assertive, commanding woman. Intimidated and undermined by Van Helsing’s feminine confidence, Seward attempts to reestablish control by undercutting Van Helsing and Mina.
After Lucy is wholly overpowered by Dracula and turns vampire, she becomes oversexual and manipulative, like Dracula’s two wives, Drusilla (Julia Fure) and Marilla (Sydney Hall) — pointed commentary on how women under male domination are often made to behave.
The rest of the story follows Van Helsing, Mina and Seward as they join forces to save Lucy, hunt down Dracula, and untangle the male-female power dynamics that control their lives.
Parallel to the main narrative is the story of Renfield (Melissa Graham), an unstable, delirious patient housed at Seward’s institution, driven mad by Dracula’s control. Like Van Helsing, Renfield is cast as a woman. Graham’s performance stands out — from her curled fingers and sinister smiles to her jerking tics and crouched crawls, Graham embodies madness and delivers Renfield’s manic, fragmented and illogical monologues with unnerving precision.
Props also go to Petermeier, whose rambunctious physical comedy as Harker makes for perfect comic relief. Klein, as Dracula, has a convincing Eastern European accent and his fluid movements on stage effectively conveyed the vampire’s sinister confidence. Vaughan was also strong as Mina — her voice and physical movements grew in tandem with Mina’s character — though some of her shouted lines were overpowering.
Director Hannah Nies craftily makes the most of the modest set and limited stage space. Renfield’s manic writings on her cell wall are intriguing, and bedsheets and pillows hung on the stage’s back walls cleverly mimic a bedroom. The lighting design was well done and makes the action easy to follow, despite the lack of dividers between the three main sets on stage.
The sound design was lacking, as I counted no more than five sound effects. I can’t say that took away from the actors’ performances, but I wonder if the overall production would have been enhanced by more audio features.
Performances of Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy. Really. continue at the Bartell through Nov. 1 at 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday (1:30 p.m. on 11/1) and 1:30 p.m. Sunday.
