Post by joem on Oct 23, 2016 22:13:13 GMT
A one-off performance and a first visit from me to this theatre. Nice to have options on a Sunday.
This is adapted from HP Lovercraft's story "The Rats In The Wall" and is basically a two-hander. I guess "The Woman In Black" is the model for the production. It is an atypical Lovecraft story in that it is set in UK rather than the US and that the mention of his Ctulhu mythos is fairly peripheral.
Horror on stage, as has been said elsewhere, is the most difficult genre to pull off. So if this doesn't come off as a spine-chiller it merely joins a long and honourable tradition of other works which don't reduce the audience to screams of terror. The specific problem with this play, which haunts many others in the genre, is the overwhelming narrative content. It is hard to feel scared at what someone is telling you in the same way as when you are experiencing it yourself. "Show, don't tell" is the mantra of many filmmakers. It partly holds true for theatre as well. Whilst anyone will happily put up with a second-hand descriptive but marvellously poetic speech by the likes of Shakespeare, eg the first description of Cleopatra in A&C, prosaic accounts in modern plays can be tedious and unengaging.
The actors, particularly David Gilbrook in the quite demanding role of Robert Delapore, the heir to the mysterious Priory, which features stupendously long monologues, make a decent stab of it; but get someone with a good voice in a darkened room to simply read the original text of the story in a dramatic manner and it would probably be a creepier experience.
This is adapted from HP Lovercraft's story "The Rats In The Wall" and is basically a two-hander. I guess "The Woman In Black" is the model for the production. It is an atypical Lovecraft story in that it is set in UK rather than the US and that the mention of his Ctulhu mythos is fairly peripheral.
Horror on stage, as has been said elsewhere, is the most difficult genre to pull off. So if this doesn't come off as a spine-chiller it merely joins a long and honourable tradition of other works which don't reduce the audience to screams of terror. The specific problem with this play, which haunts many others in the genre, is the overwhelming narrative content. It is hard to feel scared at what someone is telling you in the same way as when you are experiencing it yourself. "Show, don't tell" is the mantra of many filmmakers. It partly holds true for theatre as well. Whilst anyone will happily put up with a second-hand descriptive but marvellously poetic speech by the likes of Shakespeare, eg the first description of Cleopatra in A&C, prosaic accounts in modern plays can be tedious and unengaging.
The actors, particularly David Gilbrook in the quite demanding role of Robert Delapore, the heir to the mysterious Priory, which features stupendously long monologues, make a decent stab of it; but get someone with a good voice in a darkened room to simply read the original text of the story in a dramatic manner and it would probably be a creepier experience.
