Classic Stage Company in New York City currently has Frankenstein and Dracula in repertoire with each other. While I had my problems with the Frankenstein (mainly that there was absolutely no messaging happening in a one-woman show of the classic novel), their Dracula has stayed with me throughout the weekend and still has me screaming about the feminist messaging within the Bram Stoker characters.
In the staged production, a lot of the “female power” moments (if you will) come from Mina and Van Helsing. In this production, Van Helsing is played by Jessica Frances Dukes, and throughout the play, she constantly tells Mina to stand up for herself. Mina, because she is pregnant, is told that she can’t do much in her state.
Because the play is set in 1897, women are seen as less than their male counterparts. Throughout the show, Jonathan Harker and Doctor Seward continually discount the women around them in order to come off as “strong men,” and what’s so brilliant is that the women continue to fight back.
More often than not, when men are overbearing and feel as if they “know more,” we see female characters either ignore them or find out they’re right in a roundabout way. But with Dracula, it’s Mina and Van Helsing who lead the charge in taking down the Count himself. Mina is the one who willingly throws herself in the line of fire to stop him.
Using imagery like Dracula’s wives shouting victim-blaming language at the human women, the show is just a constant commentary on the female experience and how we go through each day. Sure, there are themes that a performance of Dracula can’t really hit on, but going into it and thinking that it was just going to be a cut-and-dried version of the story I already knew extremely well, this was quite a departure.
More often than not, we’re focused on Dracula himself, and while this production does give us the hot Dracula vibes we’re always aiming for, it is definitely more focused on the women of Dracula and how they’re taking a stand against his toxic masculinity. It does also basically say “f**k fragile masculinity,” and that’s the kind of energy I need for 2020.
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