As audience members filed into the theater to see Macalester’s spring production of “Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really,” the show had already begun. On an elevated platform between the two audience sections, Adelaide Miron ’28 paced, murmured and scrawled chalk writing onto the wall. For several minutes, she was a strange backdrop to the bustling room around her as people found their seats, chatted and watched her curiously, only falling silent when the lights dimmed and Miron’s character, Renfield, finally began to speak.
She would remain on that platform for almost the entire show, lying in shadow while other scenes played out on the theater floor. Renfield’s constant, haunting presence in the corner of the stage grounded the play to its dark reality, the fate of a woman trapped under Dracula’s control.
“Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really” stays truer to the intense Gothic story beats of its source material than its campy name might suggest. Its primary subversion of the well-known story is the gender swapping of Renfield and Dr. Van Helsing, played by Destiny Kromah ’28, a change that refocuses the story around themes of female agency and draws out the symbolism of the vampire as an enactor of gender-based violence.
While Mina Harker, played by Kyra Layman ’25, does fatally stake Dracula, played by Alec Martin ’28, in the final fight, the conclusion is far from wholly triumphant. Instead Van Helsing warns Mina to remain wary of her husband, Jonathan Harker, played by Neal Beckman, who has been acting strangely, suggesting that he may still turn on her, as any man can. The line between turning into a vampire and turning into an abuser is left blurry. The play subverts the gender roles of the time and the original story, enabling the women to take active roles and fight back against Dracula. But it also invites the audience to sit in the unease and horror of the patriarchal society that remains in place, even after Dracula is defeated.
The production carefully builds this ominous atmosphere through masterful lighting, designed by Kai Yamanishi ’25. Saturated blues and uneasy greens often filled the stage, and well-timed cuts to black left just enough to the imagination. During one scene depicting a storm, flashing lights silhouetted Dracula looking down from the balcony, and at times characters carried orange lanterns or a single candle to illuminate a darkened stage.
The design of the set placed the audience almost within the stage, between Renfield’s asylum cell and the larger section of the stage containing a staircase, windows and two impressively tall doors that opened dramatically at key moments. To reach Renfield’s cell, characters must walk behind the audience on a balcony that spans three of the theater’s walls. The placement of the actors and the viewers were so entwined that for some audience members, leaving the theater entailed walking through the stage itself.
This up-close and intimate set encouraged a reactive audience, who gasped and clapped as the tension ramped up. The production’s emphasis on spectacle fed into this as well, with evocative lighting, intense fight choreography and, as promised, lots of fake blood.
Assistant Director Moxie Strom ’27 explained that most of the fake blood was primarily a mix of detergent, food coloring, corn syrup and chocolate syrup, a mixture designed to easily wash out of the many costumes that ended each show soaked in red. Actors carried concealed bags of vacuum sealed fake blood to stain themselves upon injury or, in the greatest moments of the show, fling spurts of blood across the stage upon their death.
To protect seats from these unpredictable blood spatters, the first three rows were cling wrapped, seeming to foreshadow even more free-flying blood than the show truly used. However, Strom explained that the so-called ‘blood splash zone’ was a precautionary measure.
“When we did our first ‘blood’ rehearsal – but just with water in all the packets – and when Dracula died at the end, the water went up into the third row where we were sitting and got on all of our scripts,” Strom said.
As the actors gained more practice with props and switched to the viscous fake blood, the average splash radius decreased dramatically, though a few drops still reached the front row during Dracula’s death scene. Between all that blood and the glitter used as vampire-deterring silver power, assistant Stage Manager Ian Birchall ’27 described the show as “a lot of cleaning.”
Other impressive effects included blood capsules that actors broke in their mouths after biting someone and a stand-out moment where Van Helsing pressed a cross to Jonathan Harker’s forehead and left behind a visible burn mark.
These effects never felt overly gratuitous, but rather were used intentionally to highlight moments of violence, demanding the audience’s full attention. Combined with the closeness of the set design, the effects locked viewers into the shock and horrors of the story, making the victories, losses and deaths hit all the harder.
Overall, the show deftly balanced its blood-filled spectacle with a serious exploration of women’s oppression. Martin was frightening as Dracula, commanding the room whenever she was on stage, and the dynamic between Van Helsing, Mina and Doctor Steward, played by Xavier Honer ’28, tied the show together. “Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really” leads the audience through an expertly crafted atmosphere, culminating in an ending where its surviving women are hopeful and empowered, but perhaps not yet free.
