van helsing season 2 episode 6 full episode

Still, those points could be made more effectively with characterizations and dialogue that are less on-the-nose, less intent on hitting the audience over the head, than we too often find in this “Dracula.”Īs usual with Hamill, an actress who made her name as a dramatist with theatrical adaptations of literary works like “Sense and Sensibility,' comic elements are liberally sprinkled throughout “Dracula.' The word “Shush,' invoked several times throughout the play, is deployed to hilarious effect near the end.īut the production works best when it dives into the darkness, embracing the play’s elements of straight-up horror. So by all means, drive a stake through the heart of the patriarchy. “Dracula” has a few things to say about the gender power imbalance, in the 19th century and today, that dictate who has autonomy and who does not. And heaven knows there are headlines aplenty that substantiate that view. More broadly, Hamill wants us to think about the extent to which a monster resides in all of us - especially men - that can emerge at any moment. Dracula, after all, is the ultimate sexual predator.

So playwright Hamill is more than justified in thinking it’s high time the tale of the sanguinary Count was filtered through a feminist, #MeToo lens. Murnau’s silent film “Nosferatu” (1922) to countless dramatizations on screen and stage since then, depictions of the Dracula story have overwhelmingly been told from the perspective of men. And I rather enjoyed the splash-zone experience, much as I rather enjoyed Michelle Aguillon’s deliberately over-the-top production, even though playwright Hamill’s larger ambitions for “Dracula” yield only mixed results.įrom the publication of Stoker’s gothic novel in 1897 to F.W.

Van helsing season 2 episode 6 full episode