When Stephen Mallatratt adapted Susan Hill’s The Woman in
Black for the stage in 1987, he could have never imagined that it would go on
to outlive him and become the second longest running play in the West End – it’s
now in its 30th year on the London stage.
After all, it was made on a shoestring budget just to fill
the Stephen Joseph Theatre’s studio for Christmas. With only 2 (speaking) actors,
almost no set and more or less whatever they could find in the dressing up
basket for costumes, it’s an object lesson in less-is-more.
Actually, there is much more to The Woman in Black than
meets the eye. Michael Holt’s stage set may look simple, but it has a lot hidden
up its sleeve, and Kevin Sleep’s lighting design performs splendid trickery with
some of the oldest but most effective stage illusions in the book.
Retired solicitor Arthur Kipps has approached an actor to
help him tell the story of a curse that he believes to have been haunting his
family ever since he handled a difficult case as a young man. Although he only
wants to tell his story to family and friends, the actor has bigger ideas,
telling Kipps that he’ll make an Olivier of him yet. So it is that the actor changes
places with him as the storyteller, while Kipps plays out all the other
characters who populate the tale.
Entrances made from within the auditorium and immersive
sound design from Rod Mead and Sebastian Frost combine to oppress the audience
into a claustrophobic uneasiness. A couple of early surprises set the nerves jangling,
so that eerily drawn-out scenes drip with suspense. This is theatre that
Hitchcock would have admired.
With its longevity and frequent touring, the production
regularly gets freshened up with renewed casting, always under the watchful, meticulous
eye of the original director Robin Herford. In this current run, Daniel Easton
brings a sprightly insouciance to The Actor, whilst Robert Goodale is
delightfully lugubrious as Kipps in his early scenes, suddenly finding his
inner Olivier with the help of a pair of spectacles and going on to become a
man of a thousand faces. There’s a sparky electricity between the two and maybe
this had something to do with the brief, unscheduled pause in proceedings when
the theatre’s electrical systems tripped out during Monday evening’s
performance.
Odd how a carefully placed sudden noise can send an audience
into screams of terror, or just how scary an empty rocking chair can be, but
these things only work as well as this when done with absolutely immaculate
timing. The cast and crew of The Woman in Black pull it off with all the skill
of a great illusionist, and you can guarantee that a lot of theatregoers in
Liverpool will be jumping out of their seats this week.
The program coyly credits Audrone Koc for ‘Vision Productions’
amongst the technical team. One can only imagine what that entails...
The Woman in Black is at Liverpool Playhouse until Saturday,
with limited availability of seats left to jump into (and then out of).
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| Daniel Easton and Robert Goodale in The Woman in Black - Photo (c) Tristram Kenton |
Star Rating: Four Stars
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