Playhouse 615 Wins Spooky Season With Suspenseful THE WOMAN IN BLACK

When it comes to spooky season, theater companies the world over are faced with quite the conundrum: Go for the kitschy and campy (i.e. The Rocky Horror Show), try a classic horror title (Dracula, for example) or something that’s a cult favorite that may become a perennial audience favorite (say, Carrie or Evil Dead the Musical). In theater, of course, nothing is guaranteed so it is rare that a theater company chooses something virtually unknown to its subscribers, but which promises a more suspenseful, perhaps even terrifying, night out for theater-goers that will get them talking about the experience to family, friends, co-workers, various and sundry trick-or-treaters or people on-line in the grocery checkout queue.

Luckily, for audiences in the greater Nashville area, Playhouse 615 – the creation of Joel Meriwether and Ann Street-Kavanaugh that has been entertaining people with a deft blend of offerings for many, many months now post-pandemic – presents as its entry for Spooky Season 2023, a play that is truly spine-tingling, superbly performed and effectively staged and which offers the very real and tantalizing possibility of scaring the bejeezus out of you at the most unexpected moments.

The play in question? The Woman in Black, adapted by Stephen Mallatratt from the book by Susan Hill, that finishes up its three-weekend run in Mt. Juliet with performances through November 5. Directed by Meriwether, whose director’s note relates the tale of his own fascination with the script and his fervent belief it could engage his company’s audiences, The Woman in Black is brought to life through the splendid performances of two promising young performers in the prime of their abilities – Lucy Turner, who will be moving to New York City this winter, and Sawyer Latham, longtime friends and consummate artists, whose trust in each other is absolutely required for the production to work as effectively and as powerfully as it does.

Playhouse 615’s intimate, storefront theater space – located at 11920 Lebanon Road in a rather non-descript shopping center – becomes an aging Victorian theatre in London, where the play is set, and proves to be an ideal setting for the ghostly action that transpires during the scant hour-and-a-half of well-paced suspense that is certain to have you on the edge of your seat, your senses heightened in anticipation of what is to come.

What comes is an elegantly written ghost story about a young solicitor who writes down his personal account of a gothic tragedy that impacts his life and the life of everyone who comes into contact with or, more to the point, catches sight of the eponymous “woman in black” during an untimely encounter in a cemetery, a wet and muddy bog, or in a house haunted by the specter of her otherworldly self.

Latham is impressive as the young solicitor, who hires a capable actor/director to help him fashion his writings into more coherent form so he can explain the inexplicable to his own circle of family, friends, etc. who have a hard time believing the bits and pieces of the story he has shared with them over time. Turner, impeccable as the aforementioned actor/director, takes on the role of the solicitor in the bare-bones presentation of the story, condensing the details to the important incidents that are fully representative of the harrowing tale contained therein.

As with the very best in theater, The Woman in Black challenges its audiences to use their imaginations to fill in the secondary details of the story and its various settings as Turner and Latham so evocatively enact the tale. I’ve long been a proponent of this form of theatrical storytelling that often results in audiences “seeing” far more than they actually watch happen onstage.

It's immersive theater at its best and Meriwether directs a taut thriller that is ideally augmented by the scenic design by Eric Crawford, lighting design by Kevin Guinn and his own unsettling sound design to create a kind of “you are there” experience that is particularly effective during this rather spooky season. The action of the play does not follow a linear sense of time, which allows for a far more suspenseful retelling, and which focuses attention on the actors to truly bring the scary.

Turner and Latham deliver sharply focused, committed performances – she as the actor, he as the solicitor turned every other character in the piece save one (the eerily mysterious presence of the woman in black herself) – and keep the audience’s rapt attention glued to the action as it unfolds onstage in the various settings of the story. That they can create such an unsettling atmosphere with just themselves, elements of stagecraft that include a couple pieces of clothing and a prop or two, in such a spellbinding manner is testament to their talents and to the power of theater to transport and transfix even the most jaded of audience members.

There is so much more that could be written about The Woman in Black which might entice you to make it to one of the production’s final performances this weekend, but to give too much away would be a cardinal sin of theater etiquette. Suffice it to say that you’ll be thinking and talking about – and looking over your shoulder for – The Woman in Black for a long time to come.

You can’t say I didn’t warn you.

The Woman in Black. By Susan Hill, adapted by Stephen Mallatratt. Directed by Joel Meriwether. Stage managed by Kara Gibby. Presented by Playhouse 615, 11920 Lebanon Road, Mt. Juliet. Through November 5. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes (with one 15-minute intermission). For details, go to www.playhouse615.com. For tickets, call the box office at (615) 319-7031.

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