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The Woman In Black

Media Reviews

Creative Loafing:
13 Days of Halloween: the scariest stage play
10/27/2009
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 play's 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.

Atlanta Journal Constitution:
Woman’s’ evil event is secondary
The point is how drama unfolds
10/16/2009
Think about it in movie terms. The first time you experience Janet Leigh’s scary shower scene in “Psycho,” for example, that’s one thing. The second or 10th time you see it, the general thrill may not be gone, but the element of surprise sure is. That original shock value can never be replicated.

Basically, a twist ending only works once. But as “The Sixth Sense” proved, sometimes there are benefits to repeat viewings of a piece. Even with the mystery solved, you could appreciate some of the narrative and stylistic hints and clues you missed before.

At first flush, Stephen Mallatratt’s supernatural thriller The Woman in Black (based on a novel by Susan Hill) would seem a rather tired choice of material for Marietta’s Theatre in the Square.

Or maybe it’s simply that this British ghost story has been too oft-told of late, with three other local renditions in the last six years (at ART Station, the Academy and Red Clay).

Uninitiated members of the audience are in for a chilling treat. But the real measure of director Jessica Phelps West’s distinguished Square staging is how it rewards those who’ve come back for another helping because they’ll already know how the story ends and everything else that transpires along the way.

If the play’s final destination is a foregone conclusion, the process of getting there becomes its raison d’etre.

West’s impeccable production design creates a richly atmospheric tone that the lower-budgeted Academy and Red Clay mountings lacked (I didn’t see ART Station’s version). The special effects alone — including suspiciously rocking chairs, moving chandeliers and doors that open or close by themselves — are fairly nifty.

Seamus M. Bourne’s scenery is deceptively sparse, although he makes excellent use of an area at the back of the stage (concealed behind black curtains during much of the action).

Christopher Bartelski’s soundtrack is alternately subtle (creaking floors, ticking clocks) and startling (sudden shrieks or other bumps in the night). Rob Dillard’s moody lighting is highly effective in scenes where certain apparitions are the most faintly visible.

Of course, the plot remains the same.

A retired London solicitor, haunted by an “evil” event from his past, hopes to put the nightmare behind him once and for all, by committing his story to paper and acting it out for an audience.

To that end, he enlists a young actor to help rehearse and present the piece.

The great David Milford (late of the Square’s All the King’s Men) plays the older man, which lends an amusing irony to the character’s insistence that he isn’t inclined to performing. With minor changes of costume, Milford adopts an array of dialects and mannerisms to expertly portray a sniffling office clerk, a laconic coach driver and a priggish land baron, among other walks of life.

Gil Brady (who’s new to town) is slightly stiffer in the younger, “straight man” role. Still, unlike watching a movie over again, casting different actors is all it really takes to give a familiar play a different feel.

With eerie style to spare, West’s Woman in Black could be a definitive version of the popular suspense drama. Now more than ever, though, you can definitely relate to the old man’s need to tell his story well and lay it to rest already.

Grade: B
Bottom line: A stylishly appointed retelling of an oft-produced thriller

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