13 Days of Halloween: The scariest stage play
October 22, 2009 at 3:49 pm by Curt Holman in Events, Pop Culture, review, theater
The most frightening moments in live theater don’t always come where advertised. Mystery chestnuts like Sleuth or Deathtrap come across like suspenseful parlor games, while old-fashioned ghost stories like Conor McPherson’s The Weir, however atmospheric, seldom provide anything to lose sleep over. On the other hand, more high-brow examples of the modern “Theater of Menace,” like Harold Pinter’s enigmatic, paranoia-inducing The Birthday Party, Martin McDonagh’s totalitarian fable The Pillowman and Caryl Churchill’s apocalyptic fantasy Far Away all generate dread that lingers long after the curtain calls.
A spine-tingling, straight-up Gothic exception to rule, however, is The Woman in Black, currently creaking the boards at Theatre in the Square. The late Stephen Mallatratt wrote the play in 1987 to fill a playhouse’s Christmas slot while keeping the number of actors and props to a minimum. Mallatratt promptly scared the knickers off England, and The Woman in Black has subsequently played in London’s West End for 20 years and countless other theaters elsewhere. As a theatrical ghost story, it comes second only in popularity to Hamlet, I guess.
The ingenious quality of The Woman in Black is the way it taps the mood-creating powers of oral-tradition storytelling and the chilling power of live stage effects. T-Square’s production team take to the latter like kids playing a spooky prank on their parents. The begins when aging lawyer Arthur Kipps (David Milford) engages an theatrical impresario identified as “The Actor” (Gil Brady) to help him tell a story he’s desperate to get off his chest. The Actor suggests a theatrical experience rather than a dry, five-hour recitation, and sets up a funny contrast between Kipp’s rushed, amateurish delivery and the younger man’s ability to set a scene. The initial tension of how to tell the story soon gives over to its compelling content.
As a young lawyer in pre-automobile era London, Kipps traveled to a remote manor named Eel Marsh House to settle the estate of a recently deceased recluse. For most of the play, The Actor plays young Kipps, while the older man plays the rest of the parts. Brady effectively takes his roles from bourgeois overconfidence to genuine terror and trepidation at the appearances of an emaciated woman in black. Milford offers reasonably subtle distinctions between the minor characters – it’s not a quick-change romp like The Mystery of Irma Vep.
Mallatratt’s evocative language alone can raise goosebumps, particularly with in description of the misty “sea frets” that engulf bystanders, or the way the only approach to the house, a narrow causeway, gets drowned at high tide. Christopher Bartelski’s sound design rises to the challenge of the plays creepy soundscape, while the onstage shocks inspire gasps followed by nervous laughter. And the play leaves enough ambiguous to send the audience’s imaginations into overdrive. During the second act, Kipps finds a spunky, unseen dog as a companion, and its name “Spider” means that you may envision an oversized arachnid rather than an undersized canine.
Theatre in the Square’s The Woman in Black felt a little slow to warm up, and a couple of the “Boo!” moments didn’t quite pay off. I admit to being more scared and intrigued by ART Station’s recent production, which benefited from an impeccable cast (Daniel May and James Donadio) and a performing space so intimate, the specters seemed within arm’s reach. But then, I’d never seen the play, so I didn’t know what I was in for. Newcomers to Theatre in the Square’s The Woman in Black may not be so lucky. Or unlucky, as the case may be.
The Woman in Black. Through Nov. 1. Theatre in the Square, 11 Whitlock Ave., Marietta. Tue.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2:30 and 8 p.m.; Sun., 2:30 p.m. $18-33. 770-422-8369. www.theatreinthesquare.com
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