Date: Fri 16-Oct-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: JUDIR

Quick Words:

TheatreWorks-Pettibone

Full Text:

THEATRE REVIEW: A Frighteningly Good Story Is On The Stage At Theatre Works

(with dropquote, no cut)

By Julie Stern

NEW MILFORD -- It's that time of year again: approximately 46 percent of

Americans plan to dress up for Halloween, the rest are going to be eating

candy.

In keeping with the spirit of the season, TheatreWorks New Milford is staging

a rather unnerving ghost story: Stephen Mallatratt's The Woman in Black ,

which has been appalling audiences on London's West End for quite a few years.

Based on a book by Susan Hill, Mr Mallatratt's creation makes clever use of

the "play within a play" concept: A mousy, middle-aged lawyer named Kipps

wants to exorcise from his consciousness a hideous memory of something that

happened to him in his youth. To this end he has "written" his story, and

hired a professional actor to coach him in its delivery, so that he can read

it to his assembled family and hopefully lay it permanently to rest.

The initial encounters between the suave, confident actor and the timid Kipps,

who is such an awful reader, are very funny. The audience is relieved when the

pair resolves that the actor will take over the role of Kipps, leaving the

little man to fill in the speaking parts of minor characters as they begin the

first run-through of the tale.

As a virile young man, Kipps was sent by his firm to a lonely island on the

north coast of England, charged with settling the affairs of a recently

deceased elderly widow. The situation is all very mysterious... people stare

at him suspiciously, nobody is willing to hire on as his assistant, and he

finds he has to spend several nights alone on the island, shrouded in fog,

surrounded by bogs and quicksand, and visited by a variety of ghostly

apparitions, including the hideous Woman in Black. That is bound to lead to no

good...

The whole work is a tour de force for its two principals. Once he steps out of

his role as the man who "can't act," Mark Feltch is delightful as he runs

through a whole parade of minor characters, signaling each change by a minor

adjustment to his costume, and suddenly assuming a totally new personality.

John Taylor gets to alternate between his persona as the professional actor,

and the character of the young Kipps, who gradually undergoes a change from a

secure and self-assured realist to a man tormented by a chain of events so

harrowing and devastating that 20 years later he is still reliving the horror.

The acting is superb, and director Richard Pettibone keeps the melodramatic

tension ticking. The Woman in Black is on until Halloween, and should send

shudders down your spine. Don't bring small children.

(TheatreWorks can be reached by calling 350-6863. Performances are generally

Friday and Saturday evenings, with Thursday shows October 22 and 29, and

Sunday performances October 18 and 25. Tickets are $12 for adults, $10 for

students and seniors.)