David Allen George and Allen Vietzke perform THE WOMAN IN BLACK through October 15 at STC
By Linda Weltner
The Salem Theater Company kicks off Salem’s Halloween season with an eerie production of “Woman in Black,” a classic Victorian ghost story. An elderly solicitor and gentleman, Mr. Kipps, has a story to tell about an event in his past that has blighted his life. He hires a young actor to help him reveal this life-altering incident to family and friends, and eventually his inarticulate presentation becomes a reenactment that may have terrifying consequences for both actor and audience.
Stephen Mallatratt’s adaptation of Susan Hill’s novel starts slowly, but gains power due to an extraordinary performance by Salem State professor of Theatre Arts David Allen George. Embodying in turn a tormented man, a slobbering clerk, an aristocratic lawyer, a mute pony cart driver, a local landowner, a fearful agent, and a waiter, George’s transformations are flawless. What might have been confusing about a series of swift on-stage changes, becomes absolutely clear as George slips into character with a new hat, a new posture, a new accent, a new personality. As narrator, he also acts as a mirror to Allen Vietzke, a teacher of performance art at Emerson College, as this talented actor takes on Kipp’s personality and endures a similar fate onstage. Watching Vietzke, who allows his initial stance as critic to vanish as he becomes drawn deeper and deeper into the tale, is an increasingly scary experience, which leads the audience to an unexpected and disarming finish.
By the way, according to the program, there is no Lady in Black. Or is there?
The set, designed by Bruce Greenwald, is stark in the extreme. On the darkened stage sit two chairs and two trunks, which are artfully transformed from their mundane reality into desks, pony traps, and seats on a train. Director Catherine M. Bertrand has skillfully used sound (designed by John Fogle) as an additional character, allowing the pounding of horse’s hoofs, the chatter of a London crowd, and the rhythmic thumping of a rocking chair to add to the eerie atmosphere. Doors that are not there close with a thud; marsh gasses appear as a cloud of dry ice seeps in from a crack in the stage. After you root for Kipps, struggling to save a little dog being devoured by quicksand, it is not difficult to imagine yourself trapped by the tide on the wrong side of Nine Lives Causeway as the solid black scrim behind stage is illuminated to reveal . . . Ah, that you will have to see for yourself.
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The Woman in Black is the second longest running play in the history of Britain’s West End, and transfers beautifully to Salem as a beginning to this haunting season. It will be playing in the small intimate theater at 90 Lafayette Street, Salem, Wednesday through Saturday, until October 15. Performances are Wednesday through Saturday at 7:30 pm and Sundays at 3 pm. Tickets are available by calling 978-790-8546, going online at www.salemtheatre.com , or by e-mailing info@salemtheatre.com.
Linda Weltner’s weekly column, “Ever So Humble,” appeared in the At Home section of the Boston Globe for 19 years. She is presently host of the cable show, “Changing Our World,” on MHTV in Marblehead.
