Gothic horror without a haunted mansion
National Theatre
IF GOTHIC horror conjures visions of isolated country mansions and full moons, the fruity prose of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and uninhibited Victorian melodrama, then Anthony Neilson’s fiendishly clever latest will make you rethink. Granted, it is based on Edgar Allan Poe’s 1843 short story of the same name, which has all the hallmarks of the genre. A killer confesses why and how he murdered an old man who caused him no offence other the victim’s “vulture” eye which made the narrator’s “blood run cold.”
But Neilson’s reboot of the story is set today. It relocates most of the action to the garret of a Brighton town-house that has been rented by up-and-coming playwright Celeste (Tamara Lawrance) in the hope that a change of scenery will help her meet a deadline. Unwelcome interruptions from her friendly, if socially awkward young landlady (Imogen Doel) evolve into a trusting relationship.
Yet there is an elephant in the room. It takes the form of the landlady’s congenital eye disorder, hidden by a worryingly large eye patch. Tension builds to the moment when enough trust exists between the two for the landlady to hesitantly remove her eye patch and reveal the disorder that has blighted her all her life.
And so the real horror begins. Yet, even before this moment, Neilson’s production is playfully subverting conventions and stock-in-trade Gothhorror characters. The action is punctuated by flash-forwards in which a hard nosed detective (David Carlyle) grills Celeste about her landlady’s disappearance.
To reveal more here would be to commit the sin of spoiling.
What stays with you is the way in which Neilson develops Poe’s theme of confession, and then takes it further by exploring the psychology of the perpetrator. And, because the writer/director has form in revealing hidden states of mind, particularly with his surrealistic and hallucinogenic The Wonderful World of Dissocia, everything here is done in with an overarching command of the subject.
On top of that, the evening manages to subvert our assumptions about what sort of people populate this kind of thriller, for instance what kind of person murders and what kind investigates. When Celeste challenges the detective’s seemingly bigoted suggestion that she might be bisexual, his answer, “I don’t know why, my husband thinks I’ve got a nose for this kind of thing” requires a wonderful moment of readjustment from the audience. And there are many more examples.
Lawrance and Doel are terrific as the urbane playwright and introverted landlady. And Carlyle’s detective is fantastically charismatic. Everything you thought you knew about Gothic horror, the way thriller plots are constructed and even the characters on stage, are ultimately turned upside down.
Oh, and one more thing, it’s well worth giving yourself time to read Poe’s short story in the programme to fully appreciate what a superb job Neilson has done.