The Woman in Black
Such was the atmosphere generated, it was easy to imagine, out the corner of your eye, that you caught a glimpse of the eponymous Woman, such was the descriptive power of the text. Who would have thought that possible with only two actors on a bare stage?
Theatre Royal
London's West End has of late been notoriously dominated by musicals, leaving little elbow room for straight plays. Rarer still is the straight play that runs and runs. Set aside the institution of the Mousetrap and a couple of farces and, remarkably, only one drama remains. Having run for over thirty years, The Woman in Black is finally due to close next March, but not before the last hurrah of a touring production that reached Norwich this week. Featuring actors that have previously performed in the long running Fortune Theatre production, it offered Norwich theatre goers a taste of a show that has made history.
Anyone coming fresh to the play, yet familiar with Susan Hill's novel, might well scratch their head in puzzlement at the task Stephen Mallatratt set himself. How to stage an isolated house, cut off from the mainland by shifting tides and perilous quicksand? Mallatratt's ingenious and audacious solution was to write a play about two men trying to solve that problem. Set years after the book, the stage play has Arthur Kipps, now an elderly man and keen to share his experience, seek the help of an actor. Dissatisfied with Kipps's stilted delivery of his notes, the actor recommends a dramatization, and so begins the play, rehearsed on the stage of designer Michael Holt's faux empty theatre.
Both Malcolm James as Kipps, and Mark Hawkins as the actor, are obviously at ease in roles already known to them. James pulls off the trick of acting badly with aplomb, before Hawkins whips him into shape. It makes for a jolly start, the audience happily giggling at their exchanges, dispelling any nervous expectation that might have built up beforehand. It's evidently part of a master plan, though, intended to lull the audience into a false sense of security. Little wonder that when the first scare came, the woman in front of me actually, genuinely, jumped out of her seat.
It proved to be the start of a slow but inexorable build-up of tension, as stage craft was gradually introduced. Although the conceit remained that this was a read through on a bare stage, Kevin Sleep's lighting design and Sebastian Frost's sound immersed the audience in the events described. Spider the dog may have only been present in the mind's eye, but it was easy enough to imagine his presence. The sound of the pony and trap in distress was only heard, but was palpably unnerving. Such was the atmosphere generated by the cast and production, it was easy to imagine, out the corner of your eye, that you caught a glimpse of the eponymous Woman, such was the descriptive power of the text. As the narrative progressed, we moved further from the bare stage, instead witnessing what was in the mind of the actor. To my mind, the initial staging was deliberately crude, serving to emphasize as the drama moved on, that we were inhabiting something akin to the actor's fever dream, a no man's land between the events of the past and his re-creation of them.
To say much more would be to mitigate the considerable pleasure of seeing the play for the first time. I saw the original West End production back in the day, and I had wondered whether the company would adapt this iteration in a way that acknowledged that the audience knew its secrets. A few years ago, a production of the aforementioned Mousetrap came to the Theatre Royal and did just that. There were nods and winks aplenty from the cast, and the play was all the more enjoyable for it. On this occasion, however, director Robin Herford decided to play it straight, perhaps realising it would attract such a young, boisterous audience. Judging by the near hysterical screams that punctuated the evening when the big reveals occurred, I think he made the right call. I have to admit to feeling jealous of anyone who, on the night, didn't know what was going to happen next, or the journey this crispy delivered scare machine was going to take them on. Who would have thought that possible with only two actors on a bare stage?
