Scare Tactics

ACT Theatre certainly knows how to get a rise out of us. First came the ominous news in January of 2003 that they needed a million dollars or they were going to close their doors for good. Now they're flat out just trying to freak us out with their current staging of The Woman in Black. The folks at ACT are playing it a little safe, given that this adaptation of Susan Hill's book of the same name has been keeping people looking over their shoulders in London for years.

Now mind you, we scare easily. Once we entered the theatre, we had that same sense of dread that we always have when consciously subjecting ourselves to something scary--that "why am I do this to myself" feeling. The audience was pretty bare (granted, it was a Tuesday night, but let's hope that ACT's upcoming season does a better job of packing people in, lest we have another flashback to 2003), but even the empty house seemed to set the mood. Once we got used to the idea of lead actors pretending they're British, we were able to enjoy the real frights this production had to offer. Like a good Hitchcock movie, The Woman in Black builds from on-the-edge-of-total-boredom exposition to on-the-edge-of-your-seat suspense. The fact that the show was staged in the round further contributed to the sense that someone (or something) could creep up behind us at any point and the amped-up surround sound completed the suffocating atmosphere.

Bottom line? The acting was okay, the technical work was great, and the empty seats made us a little sad. This play's all about the sensory experience and we enjoyed it simply because it did its job of reminding us that live theatre has the power to mess with our heads (in a good way). Help keep ACT in the black--catch it before it closes on March 6th.