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Who
you gonna call? (l-r) Carnahan and Hicks in The Woman
in Black.
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Sophisticated
Spectre
By
James Yeara
The
Woman in Black
Adapted
by Stephen Mallatratt, from the novel by
Susan
Hill, directed by Charles Towers
Capital
Repertory Theatre, through Oct. 17
The
Woman in Black’s onstage “ghost light”—an old stage term
for an electrical or gaslight left burning onstage after a
performance or rehearsal “so the ghosts won’t think they’re
left alone and cause mischief”—is literally a brilliant touch.
The quaint white glow, from a single electric bulb atop a
5-foot pole just right of downstage center, makes the perfect
image and creates the ideal shadows for Capital Repertory
Theatre’s excellent play. The image and its eerie shadows
begin and end this two- hour excursion into horror—horror
not of the superficial spurt-of-blood kind, but of the mind.
It’s the sort of subtle theatrical touch that marks this play
within a play (centering on the thin line between the real,
the imagined, and the fantastic) as a success.
The second-longest-running play in London’s theater history
(after the infinitely more banal The Mousetrap), The
Woman in Black is not for youngsters or those suffering
from ADD; this three-actor play is English to its core, full
of words and a subtle massaging of the theatrical imagination.
Playgoers needing a splash of dash and flash every few seconds
to stay focused will stare slack-jawed and unmoved by this
smart play. A meta-play about the attempt of a haunted lawyer,
Arthur Kipps (Harry Carnahan), and a young, blustery Actor
(Munson Hicks), to put on a play about the spirit that has
ruined Kipps’ life, The Woman in Black started slowly
but built inexorably to moments of real fright and terror.
Aided by John McDermott’s cluttery attic of a set (trunk,
wooden table, and assorted wooden chairs, including a self-starting
rocking chair), a goose-flesh-instilling light design by Brian
J. Kittenthal (window panes of slanting light fade to black
shadows), and a fright-filled sound design by Benjamin Emerson
(listen to it: I dare you), director Charles Towers creates
the kind of engrossing theatricality that hooks a smart audience
and lands it, reeling, through the darkness, the shadows,
the screams (both recorded and from the audience). When a
locked door suddenly opening onstage or a program accidentally
dropped in the crowd provokes gasps, you know that you’re
in a master’s hands.
The three-person cast does chillingly effective work. Carnahan
is on the top of his game, creating the nervewracked older
Kipps, and then the assorted characters and accents Kipps
encountered during his initial encounter with the Woman in
Black (a disciplined Leah Hennessy, who achieves chills with
just a specific tilt of her black-veiled head). Hicks creates
both a believably vainglorious and self-
important actor and a younger Kipps, whom the audience soon
not only likes, but empathizes with. The Woman in Black
is the type of sophisticated theater that achieves its
ends subtly but fully and with complete and utter horror.
Gangs
of Cohoes
West
Side Story
Book
by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, words by Stephen
Sondheim, directed by Nicholas Garr
C-R
Productions, Cohoes Music Hall, through Oct. 3
With all the wonderful songs and music in West Side Story,
it’s easy to forget how much of the show’s power comes from
the virtually non-stop choreography created by Jerome Robbins.
Nicholas Garr, who was chosen by Robbins to recreate the role
of Bernardo on Broadway in a retrospective of the master’s
work, has somehow managed to bring the energy and movement
of the show’s big dance numbers to the Cohoes Music Hall’s
smallish stage in a production that goes a long way toward
showing local audiences what Broadway is all about.
On a two-level set, designed by Tony Rivera and expertly lit
by Andrew Gmoser, full of chain-link gates and walls that
give the cast plenty to grab onto, the “American” Jets and
their rivals, the Puerto Rican Sharks, battle it out for their
meager share of the streets in 1950s New York City. The tension
between the two gangs fills the theater from the prologue
to the closing scene. Thrust into the middle of this rivalry
is the Romeo-and-Juliet story of Tony, who founded the Jets
with his friend Riff but now wants to move on, and Maria,
the newly arrived, extremely sheltered sister of Bernardo,
leader of the Sharks. Bernardo’s girlfriend Anita (played
on Broadway by Chita Rivera and in the 1962 movie by Rita
Moreno), starts off as guardian to Maria, who has been promised
to Bernardo’s friend Chino, but eventually agrees to help
her bring her and Tony together. As in every Shakespearean
tragedy, however, it’s not to be. There are taunts, fights,
an amazingly staged rumble between the two gangs, and, at
the end, needless but somehow unavoidable death.
The cast of this production contains some terrific performers
who act and sing in equal measure—and do both at the same
time, always a plus in a musical. Michael Buchanan as Tony,
Michael Scibilia as Riff, and Rivera, who is also C-R’s producing
director, as Bernardo are top-rate. As Maria, Malaika Sims
has a lovely operatic voice that hits all the high notes of
Bernstein’s score. Michele Tibbitts as Anita has less of a
voice than the others but loads of verve, especially in the
dance numbers. Sadly it was hard to understand much of the
dialogue between Anita and Maria, due to their heavy accents
and Sims’ tendency to turn her face shyly away from the audience.
The huge supporting cast—among them Todd Stern as Arab, Christopher
Brady as Baby John, and Joe Phillips as Shrank—work hard and
do a fine job of making their individual characters stand
out.
Some quibbles: Granted that it’s hard to live up to a score
so familiar that every missed note is obvious, but occasional
stumbles by the brass and wind instruments were distracting.
For the most part, though, musical director Patrick Young,
brought in at the last minute, and the musicians did well
with this ambitious piece. I also admired the costumes by
Jenn Dugan and the authentic ’50s hairstyles, but the gang
jackets worn by the Jets looked more like Ritchie Cunningham’s
nerdy windbreaker than Fonz-style leather jackets likely to
brand a guy as a juvenile delinquent. Overall, though, C-R
has succeeded in bringing an artistic vision of young urban
angst to life in a setting not all that different from New
York’s immigrant neighborhoods of 50 years ago.
—Kathy
Ceceri
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