The Turn of the Screw (review)

Photo credit: Kelly Frisch

Spoilers ahoy!

Henry James' novella is arguably one of the absolute top tier ghost stories of all time (most would probably make it along with The Haunting of Hill House and The Shining as something of a haunting trilogy).  

The Sierra Madre Playhouse now hosts a new adaptation, The Turn of the Screw by Jeffrey Hatcher.  Like some other versions, this boils down a medium-sized cast of characters to a duel of actors -- Shayna Gabrielle as the unnamed governess who is by far the central character, and Michael Mullen as everyone else, including a wealthy but callow gentleman, a ghost, the housekeeper at a manor house, and a little boy named Miles.  Essentially the plot centers around a sheltered young woman, a clergyman's daughter, seeking employment as a governess.  The position she finds has been rejected by many others, not least because her employer--who has become the reluctant guardian of his young niece and nephew following their parents' deaths--wants to be left alone.  He is not to be contacted ever or at all, no matter what the circumstances.  

The fact she accepts this position, her first, actually hints at much.  Herein lies the key to the story's great appeal.  Hints abound, which even when explicit seem less than crystal.  She learns her predecessor committed suicide following a wildly passionate affair with another servant which resulted in pregnancy.  He killed himself soon after.  But...the governess begins to see them.  Even hear them.  She becomes convinced the manor house is indeed haunted and the ghosts are targeting the two children.

Gabrielle and Mullen bring all this amazingly to life.  The latter must readily and often play a wide variety of roles, each with a strong personality.  Yet the former literally contains the meat of the ninety-minute play.  We soon realize that whether the ghosts are real or not (and they may not be), the spanking new governess has some profound issues which now distort every moment of her life.  Her imagination clearly reshapes reality more or less nonstop.  By the end of her interview with the children's uncle, for example, in which he demands never to hear from her ever again, she is imagining herself as his wife.  In her eyes the two children are perfect, must be perfect, so if they do anything im-perfect there must be literally demonic forces at work. Increasingly she sinks into a labyrinth of fierce, protective paranoia.  

At last the results of course prove tragic.  More, under the direction of Jeramiah Peay these two actors weave a spell of imagination equal in power to this repressed governess' wildest fantasies.  "Compelling" is almost the least way to describe the performance.  Quite literally, I was on the edge of my seat and gripping the arms of my chair within twenty minutes!  Almost every word and gesture, every single silence and look did indeed turn the screw a little tighter.  That we in the end don't know the final answer to almost anything makes up part of the horror.  More, the cast by never for a moment letting up on living these moments, terror and hope and ambiguities intact, brought the story to life.

As of this writing, The Turn of the Screw has three remaining performances.  Friday July 28 and Saturday July 28 at 8pm, with a 2pm matinee on Sunday July 30, 2023 at the Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 West Sierra Madre Blvd, Sierra Madre, CA 91024.

Urban Death Tour of Terror (review)

Spoilers Ahoy! (not really)

This makes for an unusual review, because it isn't of a theatre work. Except it is. Yet, it isn't. Kinda. Sorta.

Urban Death Tour of Terror is Zombie Joe's effort into running a Haunted House for the Halloween season.  Honestly, I was a tad puzzled about what to expect, but looking forward to it! Scheduled myself for "opening night" but the second show. Initially just wanted to show up a tad later, but I got the added fun of seeing folks emerging from the first--looking thrillingly scared!

Now, really, giving away spoilers of a Haunted House would be just plain MEAN. So I'm not going to do that.

But--I will make some comments and give some advice. Seem fair?

First and foremost--the signs say this is not a show for children. Believe it! While some kids might have zero problem with the content, many parents would almost certainly not choose to expose children (i.e. those under 13 or so) to this material. Many would not want anyone in their mid-teens so exposed (although I don't think I'd be that squeamish, but...that is me). The folks at ZJU took the time to post such a warning. Pay attention!

Second, don't go alone. If you're the sort to scream and jump, you'll feel better with a companion. If, like myself, you aren't that type you'll enjoy it more with someone who is! Mind you, I think that counts as excellent advice for any haunted house!

Having said that, let me tell you this makes for a nice and creepy entertainment perfectly in line with the season and holiday! Frankly too many Haunted Houses (at least the one's I've been to) pretty much count on the audience/visitors knowing what will happen. More or less. They build on the anticipation of what everyone expects, then fulfills that expectation, hopefully with energy and a bit of style. Not this one! UBTOT in fact does the exact opposite! And kudos to them for that!

In essence what they've done is turn the lobby into a maze. Hardly a long one, but you make your way through images that genuinely disturb as well as frighten. Really feels like entering some Bad Place, like the Overlook Hotel at full throttle or some building in the town of Silent Hill.  We end up in the main theatre, where the victims...er, patrons...gather until a show begins. Not a long show. But at times a very skin-crawling one. I'm not a person who revels in horror or terror. When entering events like this I usually slip into a "detached" mode. It allows me to enjoy without getting freaked out. But here there were moments when I could feel my blood pressure rise and my breath quicken, then stop for tense moments. Even now, my imagination wanders back to some of the images and events of that night--and I shudder. Just a little.

Then, we go back through the maze to exit--and the maze has changed! It now has somewhat different denizens and events we have not seen before! Again, no details. That would be wrong. But I certainly saw some people pretty much RUN out!

So this haunted house has my recommendation! Urban Death Tour of Terror runs Friday and Saturday nights at 8:30pm, 9:15pm, 10pm, 10:45pm and 11:30pm through Saturday November 2, 2013. You can see it yourself at Zombie Joe's Underground Theatre at 4850 Lankershim, North Hollywood CA 91601. Just across the street from KFC and just south of the NoHo sign!

The Woman in Black (Review)

Spoilers ahoy!

 For those of you who might not know, The Woman in Black by Susan Hill has been something of a modern haunted house classic since its publication in 1983.  A new film version opened recently.  Starring Daniel Radcliffe, it chronicles the tale of a young solicitor sent to settle the estate of a reclusive widow in the Edwardian Era (just prior to the first World War).

Most haunted house stories work because the creators explore what seem like a simple, yet disturbing premise--that the past doesn't die.  Past tragedies continue to echo.  Shadows of sins from our parents' time and their parents before them reach out and mar the sunlit days of the present.  The Woman in Black provides a vivid example of exactly that.  As Arthur Kipps (the solicitor in question) uncovers a heart-rending tale going through the papers of Mrs. Alice Drablow, who lost her only son Nathaniel in a carriage accident on the local marsh so many years ago.  Things, of course, prove not quite as they initially seem.  Nathaniel had in fact been the son of Mrs. Drablow's sister.  Now, in rage over her loss, that sister prowls the house and village.  To see her, the Woman in Black, always presages the death of a child.  Little wonder the town where Kipps arrives seems awash in grief and terror!

All of which the filmmakers convey very well indeed!  The book, as per its medium, takes its time and can afford far more subtlety.  Films, after all, come rushing at you 25 frames per second for two hours!  One can admire the way the viewer remains at the edge of one's seat, often by the simple (but profoundly workable) trick of setting up shots of one character as if a second character should be present.  Sometimes, that second character even appears.

Likewise the film uses the generally creepy quality of dolls to great effect.

Mind you, none of that works very well without good actors bringing to life characters before our eyes.  Radcliffe, best known of course as Harry Potter (although he also played Rudyard Kipling's son in My Boy Jack as well as Alan Strang in Equus, etc.), really shows his acting chops here.  I'm a huge Potter fan yet never once did it seem like I was viewing the boy wizard.  Really, so many things came through in that young man's eyes--including a bone-deep despair kept at bay with only a resolution of steel (and that, barely).  No less impressive, albeit in a subtler way, were the rest of the cast.

But returning to the script--some of the changes made clearly intend to focus and telescope action.  In the novel Arthur begins the story single, then later weds and has a child.  For the film, he becomes a widower with a beloved four-year-old son, on the verge of losing his position.  All this throws things nicely into sharp relief.  Personally, I found less interesting the switch from hearing the fatal carriage accident from the past in the open where he can see absolutely nothing all the way to the horizon to a dense bank of fog.  That seemed a tad much.  But only personally.  Still worked.

The end, however, ultimately seems like it pulls its dramatic punch.  Somewhat.  It feels out-of-place for two Edwardian gentlemen to come up with the solution they did--find young Nathaniel's body and put it in his real mother's grave so they can be together.  Certainly that might occur to me, or anyone with an exposure to recent notions of spirituality.  And true, the film goes out of its way to point out (quite logically) that both Arthur and his new-found friend in the small village (played superbly as ever by the great Ciaran Hinds) have at least some familiarity with the Edwardian-era Spiritualist Movement.  So maybe I'm a little harsh?  Maybe.

Consider then the Woman in White.

No, I don't mean the Wilkie Collins novel.  Rather, Arthur's dead wife begins to appear as a counter-point to the film's ghostly antagonist.  To Arthur alone, and then at the very end in a way that gives a weird, melancholy note of hope, even redemption amid the creeping horror.  Not at all sure that made for a better story.  Seems to go against the grain of the whole idea--we don't really get to escape the consequences of the past, ever.  At most we can get lucky and avoid them, learn from them to counter their impact and (hopefully) not repeat the same errors.  Without looking for specific allegories about current events, seems to me this is the IDEA behind most ghost stories.  A valid and worthy idea, one that gets under the skin and resonates down to the bone.  But the current film version of The Woman in Black, while really excellent in most respects, falls short on that.  A nuance, to be sure, but an important one.

Which means the film ultimately remains quite good.  Fun and scary and well-done, but the ending doesn't quite measure up to what goes before.  As a result, that final shot lacks the real impact the filmmakers seemed to be aiming for.

The Little Stranger (Review)

Ahead there be spoilers.

I have eagerly read each and every one of Sarah Waters' novels (my fave continues to be Fingersmith) so a source of genuine frustration became the length of time it took to get ahold of her latest, The Little Stranger.

For the first time, no lesbian characters (although Carolyn...well...). For the second time, a non-Victorian setting. Also for the second time, a story having to do with ghosts. Or a ghost. Or something like a ghost. Maybe.

I think a lot of Americans don't appreciate what a horror the second world war was to Britain, how much was destroyed, how huge a percentage of the populace were more-or-less in the fight and suffered accordingly, or how long privations continued even after VE Day. I barely realize it. This book brings that period to life (or death as the case may be), the years after the war when there weren't enough places for people to live and the rationing of food, sugar, coffee, clothes and fuel continued for years.

Hundreds Hall is a Georgian mansion in Warwickshire, the home of the Ayers family (nice pun when you think about it, as in "giving oneself"). It is haunted. By what? Well, by the past certainly. Its inhabitants don't seem so much to live there as to haunt the place. Very old-fashioned are the Ayers family. From a different time, and coping not all that terribly well with a new world. And maybe the Hall is haunted by something else. What? We don't really know. Nor do we ever definitely learn.

Two other books came to mind as I finished The Little Stranger. Since finishing it I've glanced a few reviews and seen references to the exact same two. One is obvious -- The Turn of the Screw, arguably the best haunted house story ever (although methinks Shirley Jackson could give Henry James at least some competion there). One can easily see why. The lonely single person entering into the odd world of an old family estate, an employee who observes/learns about some of the tragedy in this manor, and cannot help but impact things by their own personal issues as they become involved. In the end, amidst more tragedy and even death, we are left without really knowing whether the ghost or ghosts were real. Now, which story am I describing? Both. One is about a governess. The other is about a physician. Each deals with a family unit of three, including a parental figure as well as two siblings--a brother and sister. In Waters, these are adults, confronted not with the mysteries of childhood and imagination but the gnawing despair of feeling trapped. Trapped by the house, mostly, by trying to maintain its upkeep and live up to traditions crumbling around them.

Honestly, though, this book also brought to mind Daphne DuMarier's Rebecca, about an unnamed narrator (we never do learn Dr. Faraday's first name) who enters via marriage a beloved but strange manor, one also haunted but in this case by genuine memories and dark secrets. Max de Winter reminds me in a lot of ways of Roderick Ayers, but the latter is physically scarred as well as much younger and without the fortune (i.e. comfort and security) to help maintain his emotional defenses.

When in reading novels, we see a single man meet a single woman early on, the possibility of romance drifts to the surface. So it is with The Little Stranger and if it takes a long (albeit realistic) time to develop, it also feels natural as well as achingly foolish for both people involved. Dr. Faraday, our narrator, is a doctor from a working class background whose mother once worked at Hundreds Hall. Literally, the book begins with an act of casual vandalism he committed as a child -- the stealing of carved acorn from the wall. Years later, as the whole country tries to start over again after six ghastly years at war, Dr. Faraday visits the Hall once more. He comes in an official capacity, as the Ayers report one of their (few) servants is feeling ill. Now the doctor meets all three remaining members of family:

Scarred, highly strung veteran Roderick.

His somewhat ungainly but likeable sister, Carolyn, with her beloved dog Gyp.

Their kindly but firm (as well as fragile) mother, still secretly mourning the death of her first daughter decades past from diptheria.

And the story recounts what happens over the next year. By any measure, it is a tragedy, and on many levels. One thing we're introduced to very early is the idea that there's something "wicked" in the Hall, or so the teen-aged maid Betty insists. Nobody pays her much mind, of course. Save the readers. But should we? Keep in mind one of the first things Dr. Faraday figures out is that Betty isn't really sick at all, but simply acting out (as a child does) a personal conflict between the spookiness of this place, her desire to be away from home, her fear of a new place, etc. In other words, she is suggestible and not that honest (although she seems to genuinely like the Ayers, especially the mother as time goes on).

What is really going on here? On one level, it seems straightforward enough. Waters herself said somewhere (I think) that 1947 was a terrible year, full of unhappiness for nearly everyone. In that year, the last members of this particular family deteriorate in the face of a world they don't really understand -- a world where breeding means less and less, where great wealthy has evaporated and new shapes of society create confusion. Roderick, unable to handle the stress, has a total breakdown and ends up confined, drugged to be kept docile. His mother, her imagination takes a dark turn into the past, believing her long-dead little girl wants her to join her and finally stage manages a fairly grisly suicide. Carolyn, seeking a change of some kind, any kind, falls prey to the same delusions for a split second and falls to her death.

But even without ghosts, there is more. One of the most uncomfortable series of events in the novel is the "courtship" of Carolyn and Dr. Faraday. Trained in the ways of strict rationality, he can find himself privately considering whether some Little Stranger haunts Hundreds Hall, but in word and deed he insists upon being the Voice of Reason (note the capitals). He listens to all the baffling weird details Carolyn notes, but in the end dismisses them -- even after the dizzying discovery of how much the two are attracted to one another. But like everything else here, even that is not what it seems. Is he really attracted to her, or at least how much is he attracted to the idea of her? He tries to push her in what seems like a good direction, but in the end pushes her away. Yet it is also true that she began it. She was the one who (perhaps rightly, let us be honest) wounds him so terribly by agreeing to a marriage then calling it off very abruptly (he himself missing far too many clues about her ambivalence). His pain is real. Certainly some at least of his feelings for Carolyn herself are genuine.

But might he be the catalyst, the one who "sets off" whatever strange power that may (or may not) be attacking the Ayers? More than one person points out this "ghost" or whatever it is, behaves childishly. It doesn't plan so much as play. It it exists, it can be and is distracted. But what is it? Might it be Mrs. Ayers long-dead child? She certainly thought so. No one else did. Is it a spirit given shape by the psyche of someone in and around the Hall? Or, by more than one? Carolyn points out It seems different to each person, latching onto personal chinks in their mental armor. Dr. Faraday has mixed feelings about the family, although he regards them as friends. He holds to his duty as a physician, seeing the whole world through the lens of such -- in fact, he even breaks his solemn word in the name of that duty (and Roderick never forgives him -- neither, perhaps, would I). Yet when the mask slips -- under stress and humiliation and panic -- Dr. Faraday reveals a dark side. It isn't pretty. But understandable, oh yes.

One walks away from the novel with the feeling that Dr. Faraday is somehow more a part of events at Hundreds Hall than he allows himself to suspect. It isn't that he's a bad man. He is in fact a good one, a kind man, if not terribly remarkable in most ways. There are passions there, but he keeps them muffled up. And at the end, he is certainly the one haunting Hundreds Hall--or being haunted by it. Or both. Three years after events, he still has his keys to the place. No one lives there. He comes by and sweeps things up a bit. Sits down and listens. Ponders. Wonders. Comes up with no answers, none at all. Every now and then he thinks he catches a movement out of the corner of his eye. He turns and looks.

What he sees when he does so -- well, how telling is that really? And if it tells anything, what is that something being told?

I don't know.