Theatre review – A Halloween night out
Plot
Eil Marsh House stands tall, gaunt and isolated, surveying the endless flat marshes beyond the Nine Lives Causeway, somewhere on England’s bleak East Coast. Here Mrs Alice Drablow lived – and died – alone.
Young Arthur Kipps, a junior solicitor, is ordered by his firm to travel up from London to attend her funeral and arrange her papers. At first Kipps is quite unaware of the tragic secrets which lie behind the house’s shuttered windows. He only has a terrible sense of unease. And then, he glimpses a young woman with a wasted face, dressed all in black. Who is she? Why is she there? He asks questions, but the locals refuse to talk about the woman in black, or even to acknowledge her existence at all. So, Arthur Kipps has to wait until he sees her again, and she slowly reveals her identity to him – and her terrible purpose.
Years later, when Kipps chooses to tell his story, he approaches a theatre producer who creates a performance of this story within the play itself. Therefore ‘The Woman in Black’ is almost a play within a play where scenes constantly swap between rehearsals and the performance.
Review
While dressed up children crowded doorsteps and the less zealous Halloween enthusiasts rocked the night away at the Kings of Leon Concert, I was queuing up at the Madinat Theatre ticket booth, spending all my money on watching a show that frankly I had never really heard of. The one thing I knew about ‘The Woman in Black’ was that it was ‘scary’ or meant to be at least. But to be honest with you, I was sceptical about how a play starring two men working with a minimalistic set could possibly impact an audience so much as to leave them ‘shaking with fear’ as claim the quotes on the programme. Even some films fail to truly terrify viewers and they have the advantage of cinematography, gory special effects and tantalising real life settings. I deemed it impossible for two men on a stage to possibly create their desired effect on an audience.
I don’t think I could have been more wrong.
When first stepping into the theatre I was already encapsulated by a false sense of security, the lighting was warm and luxurious, caressing the hustle and bustle of laughing people dodging others in the aisles, excited for the horror filled spectacular still to come. It was not long before the whole theatre was dark and the audience were caught dead in their seats.
As soon as the actors spoke, their talent emulated from within them and they engaged every member of the audience through every line they spoke or action they took. Even throughout the long silences I was gripped, suspended with curiosity and tension as their ghost story was slowly unravelled before my very eyes.
The tone at first was humourous, where the light hearted relationship between Mr Kipps and the theatre producer instigated modest giggles among the audience, driving them into a sense of reassurance that was soon to be shattered by the latter stages of the play. Their chemistry and presence stole my focus, especially when actually role-playing Mr Kipp’s story. I was so concentrated in their actions that I almost failed to notice the third member of the cast hovering right behind me. Black, everything hidden but a white, ruined face and decrepit eyes. The Woman in Black. Her subtle presence was eerie and hardly acknowledged in Act 1 which made her that much more mysterious and frightening. She could be anywhere and you could be completely unaware of it.
Act 2 brought horrific surprises, and although I sat still and shaking in my seat, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the action in front of me or block my ears when terrible screams and sound effects pulsed throughout my body. The actors were so convincing in their parts, maintaining this despite the fact they had to multirole that I felt so connected to the story, and found it hard to imagine that the Woman in Black was just a regular person with costume and make up. The set was cleverly manoeuvred and designed as there was no point where the audience saw stage crew come on stage and change the set. To the viewer’s perspective it seemed to just appear as if from nowhere. This is true of the child’s room which the Woman in black haunted, where a rocking chair seemed to rock repeatedly by itself without any visible form of human interaction.
Not only did the direction and actor’s performances in the play completely stagger the audience, but the twists and turns in the story left us frozen in our seats and strongly impacted by the terrifying atmosphere surrounding us. In my case this fear even managed to follow me home that night, despite my scepticism from before, and my dreams were haunted by screaming children and a woman with a white wasted face.
Lucie Turner
