The general structure of the play was well conceived, especially for one of the first forays into the genre of a horror play. The scares were on the whole nicely done and actually scary – something that can be hard to achieve in the environment of a theatre. The acting as well was convincing, with the standout performances being Dan Tetsell as Professor Goodman and David Cardy as Tony Matthews, though Eddie Loomer-Elliott and Clive Mantle as the other two roles were also very good – all four did a great job of differentiating their characters with relatively little stage time.
One thing to notice about the cast is that it is 100% male. This choice serves to create an interesting sort of ‘ghost’ that haunts not the characters, but the narrative itself – that of a woman. Each of the stories in some way revolves around a daughter, wife or mother, sidelined or wronged by the men onstage, who never themselves are truly seen. The audience are further reminded of this in the final scene, where a little doll, not part of any scares, is picked up off the floor and sat up on a chair, watching the main character. It serves to highlight how the women in these stories are ever-present but always forgotten: each man, confident he has seen as ghost, is haunted only by the guilt of his actions towards her.
The female spectre is not a new concept to horror – the Gothic genre is full of absent mothers, abandoned fiancées, feminine figures who haunt male protagonists. The writers choose to emulate it, but their stories do not develop or particularly highlight the trope. The 11-person creative team, too, only credits one woman: Ginny Schiller CDG, the Casting Director. Dyson and Nyman have certainly reminded us of the absence of women within the genre, but will their exclusion from this play haunt the writers like it does their characters?
The true attraction of this play is, of course, the special effects. These truly were incredible, with people emerging from tiny spaces and disappearing at will, to a full revolving car in the middle of the stage. Theatre is a medium with a lot of constraints: unlike novels you cannot expect people to imagine impossible moments, or edit them in films, so everything the audience sees must be created in front of them, real time. This is especially challenging with horror due to the often supernatural elements and strong genre conventions, and Scott Penrose, the past Magic Circle President who was in charge of special effects for this show, certainly lived up to his qualifications.
Almost instant scene changes and what I assume was a centre stage revolve helped create the ideas of large spaces and moving camera angles, and mind-bending, sometimes terrifying, characters and staging serve to create some amazing moments. The lighting designer James Farncombe is a real asset to the technical team as well. Both light and darkness are expertly utilised to conceal and shock the audience, and also provide great staging, keeping most of the large space in perpetual shadow to only illuminate what is necessary.
The sound designer Nick Manning also provides some great moments, using sound to exaggerate jumpscares and suggest an underlying atmosphere of fear, although it did feel slightly overdone at some points. It is exciting when something onstage manages to be scary, but simply playing a deafeningly loud sound effect feels a little cheap.
The actual plots of the ghost stories within the play were less convincing than they could have been. Little can be said of them, in order to “keep the secrets”, but the structures felt reused and relied on the anticipation of jumpscares to keep the audience entertained. There were some good moments of humour though, that helped to lessen the tension. For one of the first forays into the horror genre in theatres, Ghost Stories felt like an interesting start with a simple plot, establishing themes and effects that new writers can build upon and examine as the idea of a horror play comes to life in the popular imagination.
Overall, the play is entertaining and impressive, but not necessarily good. Technical aspects and acting is easy to enjoy, but placed in a confusing plot done so many times before, they lost some of their shine.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Ghost Stories is playing at the Lyceum Theatre until February 15th, & touring the U.K. until August 2nd
