BWW Reviews: THE WOMAN IN BLACK Spooks The Fulton Theatre Stage

Americans like - no, love - musicals. The English love chills. THE MOUSETRAP has run for years on the West End, to still-crowded houses (the first time this reviewer saw it, many years after its opening, the house was full and there were British patrons who mentioned having tried to get tickets to prior performances unsuccessfully on multiple occasions), and THE WOMAN IN BLACK, which opened in Scarborough in 1987, has been on the West End, in equally crowded theatres, since 1989 (its current home at the Fortune Theatre is mere steps from the new opera house in Covent Garden). It's the adaptation of a 1983 novella by Susan Hill, written for the stage by Stephen Mallatratt, and, like Christie's play, may well play in London forever. It's also onstage now at the Fulton Theatre, directed by Marc Robin, and this is both the time of year to put on this play, and the theatre to show it - the Fulton, built on the foundations of an old prison, the site of a lynching of local native Americans, is notoriously haunted. If you're unable to find a ghost in the lobby or backstage, you may just find one on the stage itself right now.

Set up as a play within a play, THE WOMAN IN BLACK is the tale of solicitor Arthur Kipps. Now an older man, he wants to be able to tell the story of the terrible experiences that befell him as a young man. To do so, Kipps, played by Warren Kelley, enlists the aid of a young actor, played by Jerry Richardson, to teach him how to deliver the tale properly. After several false starts, the actor suggests that he take the role of the narrator, a younger Kipps, and that Kipps enter as the supporting characters, so that Kipps will see how to hang the story together. Therein lies a pair of tales - the story Kipps wishes to tell, and the story of Kipps and his new friend, trying to put on Kipps' drama.

Kipps' tale should be simple and boring, but it is not - a trip from London to the north of England to settle the estate of the late Alice Drablow at her home, Eel Marsh House becomes, rather than the matter of reviewing a few papers and heading home, an excursion into terror at the presumably empty estate. The young actor, playing Kipps, and Kipps, as the other lawyers, a carriage driver, and other smaller roles, work through that terror so that Kipps can begin to work out his traumas. As Richardson notes, it's a Victorian man's efforts at psychodrama - Kipps hopes that the catharsis of reliving the experience through the telling will relieve him of some of his burdens since then.

There's a catharsis, and with the actor, Richardson's part, as therapist, there's even some transference... but not the transference you normally might expect. And therein, after all the shocks on the stage to that point, lies a new one.

Kelley, who's both a Fulton veteran and likely a familiar face from television for many audience members, is an excellent older Kipps, weary and terrified, struggling with the inner weight he carries, but he's equally fine as he inhabits the roles of his characters - the solicitor for whom he once worked, a local agent for Mrs. Drablow, a driver, a local member of the gentry, and others. Richardson has the necessary energy to be both the young actor and the young Kipps, racing around the stage as if it's little or no effort, whether he's on an empty stage showing how to tell a story, or reliving the rescue of a dog from a mudpit outside the Drablow manse. There's a palpable chemistry with the two actors that's a pleasure to see.

The set for this show, it must be stated clearly, is also a thing of beauty. William Mohney has produced a set that is, simultaneously, a stage on which Kipps and his new associate are discussing his tale, and Eel Marsh house itself (as well as some other locations). While it's often done with a nearly bare stage, calling on the imagination of the audience to supply everything, as if one were listening to radio, Mohney has produced an old "house" set that sits on their stage, mouldering from disuse, but sturdy enough to transform itself into a solicitor's office, an abandoned home's parlor, and an inn, among other places of interest in Kipps' tale. It is in this "house" setting, in the moments at Eel Marsh House, that the greatest shocks take place. Additional kudos go to Daniel Kopp, the sound operator for the play. Although it's a straight play and not a musical, the show is filled with sound cues tied to the dialogue as well as to the action, and it's possibly as heavily cued as that noise riot, THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS. Designing the sound and keeping up with the cues in this show is no mean feat, yet it's done here.

The story, though it's only been thirty years since the publication of Hill's novella, is a classic ghost tale, with horrors of the shock and amazement variety, with supernatural chills, rather than gore. Although it might seem too tame for those raised to believe that "horror" means Michael Myers, Jigsaw, and Chucky and those of their ilk in the movies, this is traditional horror, full of twists and turns, of awful surprises, and dreadful outcomes from unexpected moments. With no offense to the fans of the "slasher" genre of modern horror, the Gothic horror turn here, much in the mold of Sheridan LeFanu and Wilkie Collins, is considerably more sophisticated and imaginative, far more delicious than a splatter of red paint and the tossing across a soundstage of an artificial limb.

Therein lies the one great flaw with this production. Sometimes gilding the lily is merely unnecessary, but sometimes the additional weight of the gilt goes so far as to make the lily's petals droop. Marc Robin has added some original touches to the staging that gild the lily of this Gothic with additional frissons of spookiness, some admittedly derived from his fondness (shared with this reviewer) for the horror film genre, that are not only unneeded but can distract the audience from what's really happening. That's particularly pertinent at the end.

One of the great joys of the original London staging of THE WOMAN IN BLACK is the starkness of the ending - one line, repeated, on which the production ends, sharply, while the audience reels at its full implications; it is that line and its treatment that has brought this author to the Fortune Theatre more than once. Robin utilizes the lavish house set and props to add a few notes throughout that an audience unfamiliar with the play will love, especially those who enjoy modern horror movie gimmickry. However, their use at the end diverts attention and emphasis from those few words that bring the play to a thundering, silent close in the original - it trades true horror for brilliant creepiness. It is not unenjoyable, in fact it's lovely in its own right, but it dilutes the audience's recognition of what the ending words mean with an amusing haunted-house spook show of sorts.

A note of caution to those whose first experience with THE WOMAN IN BLACK comes from the recent -- and rather poorly executed -- Daniel Radcliffe film version that relaunched the Hammer Films franchise: expect not to particularly recognize your movie. There were a number of significant changes in the film from Hill's novella to accommodate Radcliffe's fans and to give them the story it was felt they would want. The play is authentic to the novella, however, and is considerably scarier in its traditional Gothic fashion.

This production is well-acted, well-staged, and far more Halloween-appropriate than the area's current glut of Halloween-timed ROCKY HORROR SHOW productions; of the onstage offerings that celebrate the fall holiday season, this is the one to catch. (And beware, as the Christmas shows are arriving immediately after Halloween, to keep up with the decorations that showed up in some area stores right after Labor Day.) You're not likely to see a better production of this anywhere in the region any time soon.

Through November 3 at Fulton Theatre, Lancaster. Call 717-397-7425 or visit thefulton.org for tickets.

Photo credit: J. Urdanetta

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