Devil’s in the details

Ahmanson’s ‘2:22 — A Ghost Story’ chooses scary style over substance

CHARLES MCNULTY theater critic >>> Horror seldom rears its ugly head at the better theaters. The genre is much more at home in the pitch dark of movie houses, where viewers can scream anonymously while comforting themselves with f istfuls of buttered popcorn.

But the stage is fully capable of terrifying an audience. (And no, I’m not talking about the recent deconstruction of “Oklahoma!” that upset so many Ahmanson subscribers.)

Centuries before “The Exorcist,” Shakespeare was conjuring evil spirits in “Macbeth.” Before “Night Must Fall” and “Wait Until Dark” had moviegoers on the edge of their seats, they were hit plays.

And the story is hardly dead and buried: Conor McPherson, a modern master of ghost dramas, has found poetic truth in inexplicable phenomena in plays such as “The Weir,” “Shining City” and “The Seafarer.”

“2:22 — A Ghost Story,” which opened Friday at the Ahmanson Theatre, isn’t just

Craig Schwartz THE U.S. premiere of “2:22 — A Ghost Story” at the Ahmanson features Constance Wu, left, Anna Camp and Finn Wittrock.