Through Sun 10/7
The Woman in Black, now at the Cleveland Play House’s Allen Theatre, is a rather traditional ghost story with spooky events and haunting consequences. It’s based on a 1983 novel by Susan Hill. It was adapted by Stephen Mallatratt and directed by Robin Herford.
Two actors convey this gothic story: an older man still obsessed with recovering from past trauma and a younger man trying to coach him so that his story may be shared.
Bradley Armacost (as the kindly older gentleman Arthur Kipps) and Adam Wesley Brown (as a confident and friendly man named only “The Actor”) easily slide into different roles. Kipps is a stolid, careful man who has been traumatized by what he thinks he has seen in the old estate whose stored papers he’s been sent to evaluate. He comes to The Actor with script in hand to practice reading it before an eventual audience (which turns out to be us). Armacost’s Kipps is nervous, but seems quite sane — at least at first. Armacost also convincingly shifts accents and postures to become other characters as needed.
Brown also assumes more than one persona, switching easily from being Kipps’ teacher to being Kipps himself, often through the simple device of adding or taking off a scarf or hat. It would not be fair to tell more since much depends on surprise.
The story, which seems written by someone who never got over the Brontes and their haunted British moors, moves easily from past to present. (Or to put a positive spin on it, those who love Wuthering Heights will likely love this.) As the tale plays out, the actors must trek back and forth between town and the haunted (maybe) ancestral estate through dangerous “moors” laid out on stage.
The set designed by Michael Holt uses minimal props, but things become less simple than they first appear. It turns out to be more than a coat rack and a few sheets hung across a backdrop. In addition, special effects — fog, noise, lighting, and sound — all aid the imagination. It’s best to sit close to the stage and on the aisle if possible.
This isn’t a new show, but rather a traditional one, first seen in the United Kingdom in December 1987 and appearing there ever since. It evidently fits a British taste for ghost stories for Christmas that developed in the wake of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The Cleveland Play House is the first stop of the production’s United States tour which will include shows at the Pasadena Playhouse in California, the Royal George Theatre in Chicago, and the Seattle Repertory Theatre. (It’s a contrast to our Cleveland annual Christmas delight with Ralphie, leg lamps, and comic bullies in A Christmas Story. Yes, it’s coming again, 11/23-12/23.
The actors are a delight, always convincing. But there’s something a bit too genteel at times. It’s hard to scare an audience used to film horror, a genre which seems to outdo itself every year with zombies, heaps of gore, and psychopathic characters.
BOTTOM LINE: Not as scary as current horror films, but a beautifully acted, super-British piece (that means, its hauntings and threats of ghostly retaliations are extremely subtle). Maybe that’s enough.
Cleveland, OH 44115