Ever noticed the similarities between ageing women and monsters? Wait. Hang on a sec. No one is saying that ageing women are like monsters. Just something controversial to get your attention. It’s an old trick. It’s not that women become monsters but the way society treats them as they age bares an uncomfortable resemblance to the way mythical monsters are dealt with. Ok so not so many pitch forks and flaming torches these days I grant you but maligned, marginalised, hidden away, denied a voice. Do you see? No? Read on. Joanna Holden and Jack Kelly, creators of brand new show Countess Dracula, give you a brief rundown of the very first woman to be marginalised in the Judeo-Christian canon.
Picture the scene. We’ve all been there. What started with so much possibility. Such a powerful attraction. It felt as if you were the only two people in the world. Has now ebbed. That which burns bright burns quickly and passion has given way to petty gripes. Those quirks which you once found endearing now just get on your nerves. The power dynamic is never resolved. What is abundantly clear to all parties is that this situation is untenable. Whatever there once was has gone. This is not working anymore. Now begins that stuttering stumbling process of ‘conscious uncoupling’ or splitting, breaking up, the old heave ho, the Spanish archer (el bow), dumping, separation or rupture as the French say. This is never straightforward. You don’t just neatly uncouple as if you are train carriages. No you rip apart leaving bits of yourself behind and taking bits of your former lover with you. Only in this situation what muddies the water further is that your landlord is heavily invested in this relationship. I mean he set the whole thing up and really wants it to succeed. He’s not just your landlord he’s also kind of your Dad, everyones Dad, he made everything. Life, the universe, the whole lot. Yes he’s God.
‘But hang on!’ you say hastily thumbing the old testament you keep about your person for moments such as this.
‘Adam and Eve didn’t split up!’
No. You are right. They didn’t. We’re not talking about Adam and Eve. We’re talking about Adam and Lilith.
Who?
Yes.
Adam was married before! He kept that quiet didn’t he. Adam and Eve the older man and the younger woman. Not how it was billed and yet oh so familiar. All was not well in La Gadda da Vida. You see Adam and Lilith were created from the same stuff (carbon? clay? the dust of ancient dead stars?). They were created equal. Lilith wasn’t made from a bit of Adam. She was independent. Not reliant on him for her existence and naturally that caused friction. Lilith refused to submit to Adam. She didn’t tow the line. She refused to know her place, to be subordinate to a man. Guess what happened? Well you don’t need to guess. Lilith was booted out of the Garden of Eden. Scrubbed from history and left to haunt the wastes of time like Cathy from Wuthering Heights or a Myspace account from 2006. Eve was created from Adam’s rib. Without a man she didn’t exist. She knew her place. Submitted to man’s will and yet still managed to cause no end of bloody trouble and like all women is essentially to blame for everything that has gone wrong since. Or on hand to be blamed when something bad happens and men can’t face being held accountable for their actions.
So what became of Lilith?
Well the stories vary. The Sumerians said one thing. The Mesopotamians another. The long and the short of it being dear old Lilith was cast out into the world. She was up against it, she did what any sane person would do. She became a demon. The scourge of men left home alone so it goes. Hebrew scriptures encouraged men left alone at home to perform incantations lest Lilith should visit while you’re all alone and torment you. Now this is where the mythology gets blurred, between outright mental mythology and fine to base an entire social structure upon mythology. The legend goes that Lilith the Demon Witch, you see how these rumours start, married Asmodeus King of The Demon Realm and herself became Queen of Demons. Not an awful career trajectory from almost the mother of humanity to Queen of all demons. Although you can bet she got paid less. Another version has it that Lilith became mother of all Vampires. Now we all know how that particular ‘blood line’, if you will, is propagated. Imagine that. If all of your favourite characters from Kristen Stewart in that thing to Kate Beckinsale in the other thing to Kirsten Dunst when she was really little to Christopher Lee when he was massive all the way back to Max Schreck, ‘Monster monster’, could all be traced back to Lilith. Adam’s first wife. A woman with so much promise who threw it all away because she couldn’t fit into the neatly sculpted pigeonhole made up for her. There’s a lineage there. A connection. Quite a strong one between women who refuse to occupy the roles laid out for them and demons who lurk in the shadows. This lineage might lead you to conclusions about who you are and how your place in the world perhaps wasn’t designed to fit you. Not to grow with you as you do but rather to bind you tightly to the point you push up against it, get jolly well fed up with the discomfort, the lack of visibility, the absence of space to talk about any of this and you might want to let some of this out, to unburden yourself, to scream and shout and tell as many people as possible. Which in turn might lead you to make a show about it. That then leads you to look for a story to hang it all on because goodness knows people need some recognisable ip these days if they are to part with their hard earned and meagre cash. That would naturally lead you to the most famous Vampire of them all. Dracula. Once there you might find the parallels between mythical monsters and ageing women run even deeper but to find out about them you’ll need to come and see our show.
Countess Dracula Work in Progress
Tuesday 26th November 9pm
Tickets £8 (+booking fee)
