From Menopause to Myth: Joanna Holden Reclaims Power in Countess Dracula

‘I thought of sucking their blood’: Joanna Holden on Countess Dracula, Menopause, and Reclaiming Power.

It started, as all great gothic horrors do, on the London Underground. Acclaimed performer Joanna Holden, feeling “tired and menopausal,” found herself envying the “shiny” young people around her. She’d just been told testosterone wasn’t tested for women; she feared sideburns. “As I glanced at the young men laughing, I thought of sucking their blood to bring back new life to me and a forgotten libido!” Holden recounts. “Of course, that made me think of Dracula: awake through the night, alone and on a quest to be forever young. He had power and charm… and I thought of the menopause.”

That underground fantasy has now been fully resurrected as Countess Dracula, a “radical re-interpretation” of the gothic myth, playing its final performances this weekend at Camden People’s Theatre. Billed as part horror, part satire, and part breakdown, the show uses the enduring monster as a powerful, absurd, and furious metaphor for a stage of life too often shrouded in silence.

The show, co-performed with OftheJackel‘s Jack Kelly, unfolds as a strange vaudeville double act. Holden, a veteran of Told by an Idiot and Cirque du Soleil, stars as the Countess, a woman reckoning with the rage, madness, and humour of this transition, all while playfully interrogating society’s fear of ageing women. For audiences with little time to spare, it’s a chance to see a theatrical powerhouse confront a taboo subject with blood, fury, and laughter.

“As I glanced at the young men laughing, I thought of sucking their blood to bring back new life to me and a forgotten libido!”

‘The horror and ridiculousness of this’

To tackle a subject as medically and emotionally complex as menopause, Holden and the company turned to the forms they know best: clown, horror, and absurdity. The result is a visceral, shifting theatrical world that mirrors the turbulence of a body and identity in transition. For Holden, the creative process and the physical experience became one and the same.

“It’s still coming together, and it’s an ongoing process,” she admits with striking candour. “It’s been interesting because I’ve been making the show whilst navigating the menopause with all the symptoms: the brain fog, the heat, the anxiety, the memory loss. The horror and ridiculousness of this has fed into the piece.”

This fusion of forms, she explains, is the only way to get at the truth of the experience. The show follows a vaudevillian couple, one of whom is struggling, and uses the mask of the clown to express the inexpressible. “Through clown you can somehow reveal a universality as opposed to following one woman’s journey, and it allows the audience to come with you in the moment,” Holden says. “The sometimes lightness of this, contrasting with the horror, allows the audience to perhaps experience something that is beyond words.”

**Countess Dracula, Jack Kelly & Joanna Holden, Photographer Henry Maynard**

‘It’s ok to be a monster, it’s ok to just be me’

The show is not a story of decline; it’s one of transformation. In reframing the myth, Countess Dracula is a political act of defiance, a rejection of the idea that an ageing woman should fade quietly. For Holden, it’s been a personal exorcism.

“I wanted to be able to face my demons and shout from the rooftops, or the turrets,” she declares. “It’s ok to be a monster, it’s ok to feel mad, to feel a monster, to laugh and cry at the same time. To summon a power and reveal yourself, warts and all, to the world!”

This process of “summoning a power” has been a revelation for her, both personally and as a performer. “It can be a horror story, a loss of who you thought you were, and an acceptance of something akin to a rebirth,” she reflects. “I found a strong sense of it’s time for me to be good, to be bad, to just be, because things don’t matter in the same way as when I was younger and no one’s watching. And if they are, they’re welcome!”

That freedom has translated directly to her craft. “As a performer I may not be able to learn lines as quickly or play five instruments whilst pirouetting,” she says, “but I can be honest and open and playful, and it’s ok to just be me.”

‘Starting All Over Again’

Holden’s process for building the Countess draws on decades of experience in physical and ensemble theatre, yet she describes it with a humility that mirrors the play’s own vulnerability. “I guess most of my work comes through play and exploration and engaging the imagination,” she says. “Every project I do, I feel a little as if I’m starting all over again from the beginning.”

This state of “not knowing” is, for her, a key part of the craft, a space where experience has to be trusted to carry her through. “I have to trust that experience will hold me in the scary moments of not knowing,” Holden explains. “I try to find myself in the Countess and the Countess in myself, and of course other simple elements of costume etc. give you even more to play with.”

‘I’ve always loved fringe theatre’

That process of playful exploration is why, despite a career taking her from the RSC and The National Theatre to the global spectacle of Cirque du Soleil, she is drawn back to intimate spaces like Camden People’s Theatre.

“I love to work alongside the audience, be able to see them and hear them breathe, and play with them and for them,” she says. “I’ve always loved fringe theatre. It’s where all the great and experimental stuff happens by people who really want to say something.”

Her love for CPT is also personal. “One of my best friends at university, Lynne Kendrick, set up CPT, so I have known it all my performing life and have always loved it.”

She champions the power of the small room, arguing that scale has nothing toDRAFT 1 with impact. “It doesn’t take a huge amount of money and expensive seats to create a lifelong memorable experience, just someone in a room and someone watching,” she says. “I wouldn’t presume our show is a memorable experience, but CPT have given us the opportunity to explore.”

“I have to trust that experience will hold me in the scary moments of not knowing,” Holden explains…

‘Ask the boss for man money’

That exploration wasn’t just confined to the rehearsal room. In developing Countess Dracula, the company hosted community workshops with people experiencing menopause, and their stories became an integral part of the show’s DNA.

“At the end of these sessions, after the ladies had shared and hugged and cried, the overwhelming sense was of community, a togetherness, a holding of each other’s hands,” Holden recalls. This sense of shared strength and optimism, she says, is exactly what she wants to find in the role.

It also provided a powerful glimpse of the “rebirth” the play champions. “An optimism that somehow when we’ve come through this, we’ll have the power to ask the boss for ‘man money, else I’m leaving,’ as one lady did,” she says. “We would find a letting go and a new beginning.”

Ultimately, CountSss Dracula is a call to reclaim the life force that society often suggests is waning. When asked what that force is, Holden’s answer is a simple, defiant, and direct message. “Oh gosh, the life force is within us, I guess. Whatever we’ve done or want to do, we are enough,” she insists. “No matter how society might like to portray or see middle-aged women, we are the backbone and the glue that often hold families, ageing parents etc. together, and now is our time.”

As for what audiences should feel in the show’s final moments? Holden hopes for the full spectrum. “Laughter, recognition, or a shiver? Of course I hope they will experience all three, and all the bits in between too.”

Featured Image: Countess Dracula, Jack Kelly & Joanna Holden, Photographer Henry Maynard