Bathory

David E. Kemp, a former professor of drama at Queen’s University, is
the author of The Pleasures and Treasures of the United Kingdom.

Moynan King is a Toronto-based actor, writer, and director. Produced by
Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, her latest play centres on the
life of Countess Elizabeth Bathory, a mass murderer who lived in Hungary
from 1560 to 1614 and was incarcerated in 1620. King’s treatment of
Bathory’s life and crimes is darkly comic, which is hardly surprising
given that the play’s chief protagonist lived in a castle in the
Carpathian mountains and was nicknamed the Blood Countess. This deranged
gothic fairy tale draws some disturbing parallels with present-day
society’s own obsession with the darker elements of power, female
sexuality, and the lure of magic.