Laura Jones-Macknin Photo by Steven Townshend/Distant Era

The story opens with Erzsébet Báthory doing damage control in the wake of her husband's premature (though not unexpected) death. Specifically, Erzsébet is eager to ensure that her son, Pál, returns home so that she can begin his education in administering their lands preparatory to his assuming his title as the new Count Nádasdy. Before she can impress upon him the threat their family and their holdings are under from not just invaders, but their supposed friends, Pál has reached out to one such friend, György Thurzó, to secure help in escaping his mother's influence so that he can follow the example of his father, whom he believes to have been a great soldier.

Thurzó is only too eager to provide this help, as he seeks to punish Erzsébet for her perceived crimes, including her isolation of her late husband during the two years before his death. This triggers the aging Erzsébet's determination to remain alive long enough to secure her son's legacy and see it handed over to him. The result is literally the stuff of legends, as what may have begun as a relatively minor foray into medical cannibalism to treat epilepsy becomes a literal bloodbath.

Brandon serves as not only director, but scenic designer, and he arrives at something that serves both the story and the small black box space well. The audience is arranged in banks on either side of the stage that extend the length of the theater. Farthest from the entrance is an imposing hearth and grate, whereas closer to the entrance are arches that impart a monumental character to the castle. Otherwise, Brandon uses a small number of straight-backed chairs, a wooden vanity, and a moveable, stone-faced set piece that serves as both Erzsébet's bath and the foundation for a dining table, as the scenes move between the story's private and public spaces.

Brandon also carefully blocks the scene changes, employing the household's servants and guards not as mere stagehands, but as characters who laugh, sigh, roll their eyes, and live the fullest lives available to them within the confines of their own circumstances. This not only enriches the overall story, but also injects another level of horror, as these interactions defy the interchangeability of these people (literally played by the same actors) to Erzsébet and her fellow nobles.

Brandon's visual foundation is expertly enlivened by the work of both Laura J. Wiley (lighting and projection designer) and L.J. Luthringer (sound designer and composer). Together, Wiley and Luthringer lay in a deeply effective layer of horror that runs through the entire show. But the two also excel in crafting precise and specific moments, as they brilliantly convey, for example, the disorientation of Erzsébet's seizures and the uncomfortable intimacy of the dungeon where she tortures Thurzó's son.

Jennifer Mohr's costume design similarly elevates the production. The red embroidery down the arms of the women servants' blouses not only evokes local decorative and artistic traditions, it strategically reads as blood against Wiley's lighting. Mohr's addition and subtraction of costume pieces conveys individuality and, from Erzsébet's perspective, oppressive, disposable identity. Likewise, Erzsébet's dowager look, in contrast to the slinky, "evil queen" vibe Mohr captures after she passes the point of no return, is appropriately striking.

Laura Jones-Macknin leads the cast with a genuinely commanding performance. Dalberg has conjured up a very talky play and Jones-Macknin admirably handles the dialogue-as-exposition, finds the wry moments of humor that are vital to balancing the tone, and slips with grace and ease between the ferocity and frustration that Erzsébet comprises.

The rapport between Jones-Macknin and Mara Kovacevic as Anna Darvulia, a survivor and Erzsébet's "witch in residence," is part of the production's magic. The two are vulnerable with one another, and the trust this breeds builds up both characters to such an extent that their climactic confrontation is both shocking and heartbreaking. Kovacevic's performance is especially nuanced and compelling as she confronts the priest who looked on as she was brutalized by the very enemy soldiers whose wounds she had tended to.

Xavier Lagunas is maddening (which is to say, very effective) as Erzsébet's son, Pál Nádasdy. In collaboration with Jones-Macknin, Lagunas creates a genuine conflict where the concerns of mother and son are legible to the audience and interesting, even if the weight one lends to each is necessarily unequal. Most impressive is the fact that Lagunas projects real growth in the brief scene near the end of the play when he conveys the sentence that has been laid on his mother.

In the supporting cast, Raúl Alonso does laudable work without he benefit of lines as János Újváry. Makenna Van Raalte has similarly limited material as Imre Thurzó, György's son and Pál's best friend, but they do well inhabiting both the individual character and the larger role that character plays in the narrative, ensuring that the play's climax is well-earned.

As György, Erik Schnitger's performance verges on slightly too big for the space, but this offers such a successful contrast to Jones-Macknin's restrained swatter that it can only be deliberate. In a related vein, Jeff Broitman is appropriately weaselly as the intermittently righteous priest, István Magyari.

Idle Muse Theatre Company's The Blood Countess runs through October 11, 2025, at The Edge Off-Broadway Theater, 1133 W. Catalpa Ave., Chicago IL. For tickets and information, please visit IdleMuse.org or call 773-340-9438.