I belonged briefly to the Lotus Theatre Collective, which produced "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)" and co-produced my last world premiere "Love Negotiated". One of the projects we talked about but never did was a play about Elizabeth Bathory, about whom I knew nothing until I saw a a Discovery Channel documentary on her. It turns out that the exploits of Elizabeth Bathory made her more a vampire than Dracula.
After watching the documentary, I pitched my collective-mates on a story that juxtaposed the historic countess with modern "psychic vampires". Psychic vampires are a group of people who seek to take the energy of willing participants through odd made-up ritual. But there are people who can take your energy in the form of time (by being late), money (by screwing up in business) and life (by driving like a zombie on California freeways). My experience was with people referred to as "Crazymakers" in a book caled The Artist's Way.
"Crazymakers thrive on drama, and melodrama requires a sense of impending doom. ... Theirs is a world of trumped up conflict, confusion, and chaos." (The Artist’s Way at Work – Riding the Dragon. Twelve Weeks to Creative Freedom by Mark Bryan, with Julia Cameron and Catherine Allen)
This type of person has haunted me for years. A committee member who brings business to a screeching halt because she "doesn't understand" any on a number of small things; that member of a sports team who is always getting himself hurt; and probably every cast member on every reality series ever made.
I was ranting about this while volunteering for DangerHouse on their production of "An Evening of The Grand Guignol". DangerHouse and Grand Guignol were made for eachother: theatrical realism, melodrama and blood all mixed together to make for theatre that makes people wonder either why they're so afraid or why they enjoy being scared so much. Marie Miller, a DangerHouse founder, is an excellent lighting designer who has worked on two of my previous productions. She mentioned that there was a very Grand Guignol-esque theatre that DangerHouse rented and asked if I had anything to put in it. I gave her my Elizabeth Bathory vs. the Psychic Vampire pitch and told her I had "almost a whole play written". She agreed to a commission (because she knew full well that I didn't have more than a few pages down but a very good idea). And she wanted a bloodbath.
So I began writing about three Goth Girls from UCSD on a trip to Transylvania to give Elizabeth Bathory her due. Then Marie took me to the Victory Theater. It was perfect! The building is old -- circa 1928 -- and has housed a movie theatre and an evangelical church. It is the current home of Technomania Circus. The Techno-Maniacs welcomed me with open arms and Castle Bathory began to take shape in my mind. I had thought of doing the play originally at Sweedenborg Hall (where I was the playwright in residence until recently) but the sheer amount of blood, blasphemy and breasts meant that I probably couldn't do the show anywhere near a church. But a former church? In a bad part of town? OK!
One problem with bringing this story to the stage is that Elizabeth Bathory spent a lot of time in the tub. I wouldn't be surprised if the term "bloodbath" were traced to her. You see, she bathed in the blood of virgins because she liked the way the blood made her skin look. In the TV special, there was a scene of the Countess striking a servant girl with a brush. So the bathtub and the brush would be recurring props. The twin constructs would be power and bloodlines, along with a strict upbringing and liberal use of the brush on little countesses who don't respect those constructs.
Meanwhile, in San Diego, we couldn't find a tub! Until we found a 350-pound faux-brown-marble tub I had nightmares! The tub was one of those things that fell into our laps after five minutes on Craig's List and one phone call -- and it was literelly sitting ten blocks from DangerHouse (yes, it's a place; Marie lives there). Providence! A theatre and a tub!
So now to make the play a commentary on the youth-obsessed American psyche. Well, actually that was easy. I watch tv commercials like only an under-employed actor can. Now my three Goth Girls were smart and socially astute -- something DangerHouse's Marie Miller had insisted on. Three smart girls, a Renfield-like castle handyman with a secret and a mysterious minister of culture who doubles as Thorko, Bathory's manservant/lover/occultist . Now to draw the Blood Countess.
She was easy as well. It turns out all those Crazymakers from my past came in handy. She is more powerful than smart and more smart than nice. And she wants to tell her story. To do that, certain rites must be seen to. Then, when she breaks out of a statue (yes, that cost a lot of money, thanks for asking), it's a simple thing to reunite with her servant/lovers and compel the American girls to set the story straight. But what would make a woman kill and bathe in the blood of over 500 loval virgins. Her violent past? Her mysterious lover/manservant Thorko? An evil father? How about yes to all three! So the taleshe tells is a brutal one.
The Goth Girl in charge is the self-proclaimed Psychic Vamp Ilona Black, who began life and her stay in Transylvania as Eileen Brown. The Scene Vamp Darcy Sainz is her friend and consort in any number of occultist dabblings and Darcy's kid sister Dot, the smart one, does all the research. But three smart, priveleged American Goths are no match for The Blood Countess. They play all manner of characters from the Blood Countess' life and some get stuck in character...
There needed to be bondage. Bathory's victims needed to be kept somewhere between bleedings and bound and gagged seemed like the best bet. To represent this, we're asking the audience's indulgance. Six lucky audience members will be tied up on stage each night. The cast are all well-versed in knot-tying... I looked into various knots used in the bondage community and the interesting thing was that they were all pretty much the name knots I use in theatre and circus rigging. Yes, I have done time as a circus roustabout and a trapeze catcher, hasn't everyone?
I might as well give the rest of the plot away. I recently read that Romeo and Juliet is, and always has been, the most popular story in history simply because everyone knows what's going to happen. And, if audiences don't know this, they are told in the proloque AND the epilogue of the play. So my Elizabeth Bathory comes to life on Valentine's Day (Marie's idea not mine, I wanted Halloween). She does this only when there's a full moon on St. Valentine's night. Romantic? Yes, she and Thorko are lovers in this play -- one of the benefits of prepairing a play for a Feb. 14 opening. So the statue comes to life, finds the Goth Girls charming, and compells them to tell her story properly.
A first-person narrative from the Blood Countess' own lips as acted by the Goth Girls with the help of János and The Minister, who are always in for theatrical fun on Valentine's Night. Then she turns the Americans into her servants from the old times. The sisters Darcy and Dorothy Sainz are a perfect match for the witches Dorottya and Darvula Szentes and Eileen Brown (or the newly minted Ilona Black) is a perfect match for the nurse Ilona Joo. The story is told, the audience is bled and the American girls pay the ultimate price for their fawning affection for vampires.
And that, my children, is the story of The Blood Countess.
