KEY POINTS:
Old-fashioned ghost story The Woman in Black demonstrates that no matter how sophisticated we humans are, it seems that people will always be afraid of things that go bump in the night.
Currently showing at the aptly atmospheric Civic Theatre, The Woman in Black is being promoted as a West End sensation and a "marvellously spine chilling drama".
This international production comes to New Zealand with impeccable credentials. It has played on the West End for nearly 19 years and been seen by more than 3 million people. This show features actor/director Robin Herford who directed the inaugural production and commissioned the piece.
So can theatre be scary? Halfway through the show the answer was no. The faultless acting and professional stagecraft of the piece had me convinced we were firmly in Masterpiece Theatre territory. That particularly English genre of Victorian gothic where impenetrable sea mists roll into dangerous moors, abandoned country homes hide terrible secrets and eccentric rural characters are terrified of an unexplained evil.
The pace was a little slow for the CSI generation but I thought others in the audience were probably more in the target market and more caught up in the action. So I was surprised to see the white-haired woman in front of me turn to her husband and say loudly, "It's boring."
While her assessment might sound harsh, it was fair - even three-quarters of the way through the show.
The stagecraft is good and the two actors Herford and Mark Healy are excellent. But convoluted structure gets in the way of the story and there is too much telling the audience how to feel.
A lot of the play is centred on Arthur Kipps hiring an actor to help him tell his ghost story and their rehearsals of the recitation. The unnamed actor has to bully and cajole Kipps into using his imagination and trusting the power of simple theatrical tricks - a rather condescending instruction that is also directed at the audience.
It is much better when Herford and Healy stop rehearsing their "play within a play" and simply act it out. In these bits the show is genuinely creepy as it plays into basic human fears of darkness, isolation and helplessness.
It is easy to feel sympathetic for hero Kipps as he battles with his own insecurities and realises he is powerless to protect himself or his family from supernatural evil.
The simple but effective special effects are designed to get hearts racing - a single torch lost in the dark, horses' hooves and heart beats in the blackness, and then a blood-curdling scream.
The Woman in Black has acting and stagecraft to admire, but the old-fashioned tale is more bum numbing than spine chilling.
When: until June 24
