‘Phantasmorgia: Reckoning’ still spooky
Palm: Clever formula remains the same in 10th anniversary of show.
I confess, it was my fault. It really was an accident. I wasn't thinking, I was tired. But I uttered the name of Shakespeare's “Scottish play” in the theater right before Saturday night's performance of “Phantasmagoria: Reckoning.”
In showbiz lore, to utter “Macbeth” in a theater is to court disaster. And while the performance of “Reckoning,” the latest collection of spooky tales from Orlando's steampunk storytelling troupe, was far from a disaster — there were an unusually high number of bumps in the night.
A patron taken ill, a computer crash that interrupted the show's projected video backdrop, a strange audio hum that came and went … this couldn't really all be because of a superstition, could it? Or were restless spirits at play throughout these stylishly told stories of ghosts, the devil and the undead?
Even the actors seemed a bit rattled in places. In a troupe known for its precision speaking in unison and attention to vocabulary, more than once the wrong word came out of someone's mouth.
Yet a few goblins in the works were never going to stop the power of Phantasmagoria, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary. The clever formula remains the same: An eye-catching combination of steampunk fashion sense with a delicious taste for the macabre. The stories told by the troupe generally come from folklore or 19th-century literature. Atmospheric dancing and intriguing puppets augment the spooky mood.
All of this is on fine display in this year's installment, which pleasingly focuses more heavily on the stories at hand than the sometimes convoluted framing device of the storytellers' personas.
Among the best this year: “The Horla,” in which Jeremy Wood portrays a man driven to madness by an unseen entity. With notes of fear, dread and eventually hysteria in his voice, Wood beautifully and chillingly takes the audience on his character's dark journey. Wood, in fact, is the MVP of this year's show, shining in multiple tales.
In “Never Bet the Devil Your Head,” another winner, he plays the king of the damned with panache. Malcolm Boniface and troupe leader John Di-Donna contribute to the comedy — yes, comedy — of the work, by Edgar Allen Poe. Boniface is both charming and caddish as the insouciant young man who learns not to mess with the devil.
A Russian story with the familiar trope of a pretty girl, an evil stepmother and just-as-bad stepsisters also amuses, though Audrey Perryman (as the Russian Cinderella) needs to project her voice more. That advice also goes to Daniel Cooksley, whose appealing intensity is muted by his soft vocal tones.
Kaitlin Elizabeth Baxter and Liz Curtis also have memorable turns spinning yarns. Some macabre poems provide quick chills, though rhymes about witches come too fast to be fully understood. Better: a double bill of gruesome fairy tales, “The Singing Bone” and “The Juniper Tree,” which has lovely movement though the puppetry doesn't feel as sophisticated as in years past.
Even with the ghouls up to their tricks, though, “Reckoning” has plenty of Halloween treats.
‘Phantasmagoria: Reckoning’
■ Length: 1:45, no intermission
■ Where and when: Lowndes Shakespeare Center in Orlando, through Monday; Athens Theatre in DeLand, Friday; Tampa Theater in Tampa, Saturday; State Theatre in Eustis, Oct. 31; Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center in Sanford, Nov. 1; Reilly Arts Center in Ocala, Nov. 2.
■ Info: phantasmagoriaorlando.com