Review: DRACULA: A FEMINIST REVENGE FANTASY, REALLY at SF Playhouse

Kate Hamill’s cheeky feminist reimagination of Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a lot to chew tacking issues of toxic masculinity, female empowerment, and even a political message on unchecked power and megalomaniacal dangers. It’s at times bold, moody, haunting, well-acted and unusually comical. Audiences familiar with the Dracula story will recognize the characters, presented with gender bending performances by Producing Director/Co-Founder Susi Damilano as the vampire slayer Dr. Van Helsing and Bay Area legend Stacy Ross as the fanatically devoted madwoman Renfield.

Act One lays out the plot: Dracula, played by the suave Johnny Moreno, feels the changing times in East European Transylvania. Control is shifting to the masses and he needs to blend in and become anonymous. Where else, but cosmopolitan London where he and his two bloodthirsty sirens can feed endlessly. He’s engaged a solicitor, Jonathan Harker (James Aaron Oh) to purchase properties. Oh, and Jonathan is bitten and infected. Back home in England, his pregnant wife Mina (Sharon Shao) commiserates with her bestie Lucy about their plight as late Victorian age women – powerless chattel only elevated by marriage to worthy males.

Lucy (Nemma Adeni) has her man, Dr. George Seward (Josh Schell) who runs a local asylum housing Renfield. Seward is played as a bumbling fool, incapable of recognizing female value and eager to maintain male dominance. When Dracula and his demons wreak havoc in their hometown, action needs to be taken. Enter Van Helsing, presented as a tough cowgirl complete with a huge Stetson and gun belt holding her sharpened wooden stakes. Van Helsing and Mina will rise to the occasion to defeat Dracula. This is the feminist bent to the show.

Stacy Ross is once again brilliant in her heart wrenching portrayal of Renfield. With her misplaced devotion to her ‘master,’ she hopes to be united with Dracula and given her props. She understands her ‘sacred suffering’ is necessary penance yet has a warning to Mina about monsters that need defeating. This metaphor for today’s political horrors and tying it to feminist action is the highly potent message of this play.

Artistic Director Bill English directs with excellent assistance by Jackie Scott’s gothic scenic design, Michael Palumbo and Tristan Fabiunke’s stark lighting, Carl Erez’s projections and Kathleen Qiu’s costuming. There’s some confusion in Hamill’s book – is it a dark comedy or a drama. People laughed at the bloody impalement murders and at Van Helsing’s strong take charge action figure. Was it intentional over-the-top laughs to counterbalance the horror? Perhaps.

Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really continues through June 27th. Tickets available at http://www.sfplayhouse.org/  or by calling the box office at 415-677-9596.

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