Hitchcockian chills aplenty in ‘Any Night’
What better way to emphasize the atmosphere of a nightmare than to make one’s female protagonist a sleepwalker who fears that, in her twilight state, she will hurt herself or kill another?
This is the conceit at the heart of the Los Angeles premiere of “Any Night,” co-written by Daniel Arnold and Medina Hahn. Elizabeth V. Newman’s authoritative staging incorporates the bizarre and the quotidian into a seamless dreamscape with riveting performances by Zac Thomas and Marie Fahlgren.
However, whether it sustains its own fever-dream tone is questionable. The thriller is encumbered with surrealistic elements at odds with the Hitchcockian plot.
Yet Thomas and Fahlgren strike no false notes in Newman’s sterling production, which enhances the play’s strong points while largely mitigating its weaknesses.
Anna (Fahlgren), a dedicated dancer, has just moved to the basement apartment of a building managed by Patrick (Thomas), a retiring and seemingly sincere young man who apparently wants nothing more than to protect Anna from her own particular pathology. As the play progresses, a sweet romance evolves — until unforeseen twists skew their relationship into a lethally dark direction.
Or does it? Left in limbo, we can only conjecture about what actually transpired, or what the playwrights intended. Choreographer Erica Gionfriddo contributes masterly dance sequences, enacted with lissome skill by the actors, while Eliot Gray Fisher’s sound design keeps the mood appropriately fraught.
Note to the playwrights: While “Night” may have its faults as a play, it could soar on the big screen. Stripped of a few dubious embellishments, it has enough creepiness and suspense to make some latter-day Hitchcock drool to direct.