TURN OF THE SCREW DELIVERS CREEPY CHILLS
But clever two-actor play falls just short of genuine fright
There is definitely a ghost haunting Vertigo Theatre’s current production of The Turn of the Screw.
It may not be the ghost of a lecherous governess and/or her sadistic valet lover, depending on whose version of the story you believe, but it is definitely the ghost of Stephen Mallatratt’s 1987 stage potboiler The Woman in Black.
Mallatratt took Susan Hill’s 1983 novel about a vengeful ghost and paired it down to a tour de force for two actors, one of whom plays the doomed young lawyer and a second who plays the whole supporting cast.
Almost 30 years later, The Woman in Black still has people in London squirming and screaming and applauding the chameleon antics of the second actor and money rolling in at the box office.
Vertigo Theatre struck gold several seasons ago with its production of The Woman in Black, so it probably seemed like manna from heaven when artistic director Craig Hall read Jeffrey Hatcher’s version of Henry James’ 1898 ghost story, The Turn of the Screw.
Once again we have a dense novel reduced to a stage vehicle for two actors.
Myla Southward plays The Woman, who is a young, sexu- ally and emotionally repressed daughter of a minister who takes her first job as a governess to care for a pair of young orphaned children at a remote country estate called Bly.
In short time the girl learns the children’s previous governess, Miss Jessel, had a torrid affair with Peter Quint, the estate’s sinister valet. Both died tragic, mysterious deaths.
The old housekeeper, Mrs. Grose, is reluctant to share too many details of the affair or the deaths but the governess ekes (or perhaps eeks) out some nice details.
Soon the governess insists she sees the ghosts of Quint and Jessel stalking the estate, taunting and luring the children.
In the case of young Flora, it is to drown herself in the lake where Jessel perished.
In the case of her older brother Miles, it is to corrupt the boy’s morals beyond saving.
It’s up to Braden Griffiths to play everyone from a supercilious narrator and the children’s pompous uncle, to Mrs. Grose and young Miles.
In Hatcher’s version of the tale, the whole sordid affair Flora and Miles actually witnessed has left the little girl so traumatized she is mute, saving Griffiths from having to play that little munchkin.
It’s great fun watching Griffiths go through his character gymnastics.
One minute he’s all rigid for the uncle, then bent over for the wizened Mrs. Grose and then bouncing about on his knees to play Miles, who’s as close to evil as can be without actually having hoofs.
Southward is initially sweetly naive, though she does soon drop hints that the governess may not be working with a whole deck.
When she finally decides to exorcise the demons haunting Miles, Southward is scarier than any of those shadowy figures lurking behind the drapes at the back of the set.
The floor of Scott Reid’s wonderfully gothic Victorian set is flooded with water, which is a stroke of genius on the part of director Ron Jenkins, one of the most consistently innovative and imaginative directors working in Canada.
Jenkins knows that without this ingenious distraction, Turn of the Screw would be little more than storytelling, which it still is but now we have all that splashing around to add a whole new level to our enjoyment and to our one big fear, which is that Southward might understandably just drown that pesky little Miles to rid him and us of the ghosts of Bly.
Jenkins’ The Turn of the Screw is all about atmosphere and mood, and though creepy and unsettling, is never genuinely scary.
I kept having flashbacks to that wonderful 1961 film version called The Innocents, which had Deborah Kerr being driven mad by two demonic children and boy, did I miss those children.
Should you hear the moaning of a ghost in the lobby or corridors of Vertigo Theatre, it will probably be the spirit of Henry James who gets nary an ‘inspired by’ or ‘ based on’ credit except in the director’s notes.
The Turn of the Screw is all about atmosphere and mood