The Trial of Countess Elizabeth Báthory: Developing a Defense for Dame Dracula and Deconstructing Dominant Dames
2019
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The Trial of Countess Elizabeth Báthory: Developing a Defense for Dame Dracula and Deconstructing Dominant Dames
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2019
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For my thesis, I wrote and performed a one-woman show about Countess Erzsébet Báthory, with the intention of reframing the infamous lady’s narrative from her perspective, and paralleling her plight to contemporary issues of misogyny and oppression. I wrote the script after months of academic and laic research, recorded and mixed a sonically complicated section of the piece called “The Voices,” constructed a historically accurate costume, perfected a variation on a Hungarian dialect, memorized my complicated script, and performed it in front of my classmates, mentors, and friends. During the piece, I presented the legendary figure to the audience using the theatrical device of the “Joker,” taken from Augusto Boal and Forum Theatre, and announced they would vote at the end of the piece on whether she was innocent or guilty. I then transformed into the Countess and delivered a monologue defending her actions, her legend, and her legacy. The audience voted, and afterwards, I linked the story of Báthory to modern examples of women who have been destroyed by the patriarchal structures in our society. In both shows, the audience voted Báthory innocent, which is antithetical to the current consensus. However, I found that the arguments and discussions I incited through my piece were more interesting and more important than the outcome of the vote. As I continued throughout my process, I realized that it was my job to pose the question to the audience, not to answer it for them. My job was to open minds and untie the knots that society had tied in my audience’s brain. Through the creation and performing of this piece, I was able to combine my multiple theatrical talents of dramaturgy, playwrighting, and acting and promote insightful and educated discussions about feminism and misogyny in my community, both of which were goals I had set out to achieve in completing this project.
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Lawhead, Rachel. (2019). The Trial of Countess Elizabeth Báthory: Developing a Defense for Dame Dracula and Deconstructing Dominant Dames. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/208558.
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