Theater Review—

Henry James Fans Will Enjoy Westport’s Latest, Especially Now

By Julie Stern

WESTPORT — As always, the set design at Westport Country Playhouse — this time by  director Loy Arcenas — is magnificent. The semi-abstract but highly detailed landscape of a dream, with a skeletal three flight staircase up to nowhere, to convey the recesses of an isolated Gothic mansion, is both ominous and enticing. Robert Wierzel’s lighting permeates the stage in a way that, by turns, transforms the promise of bucolic serenity into a nightmare of shadows.

It’s getting close to Halloween and Westport has chosen to celebrate this haunting holiday with an adaptation by Jeffrey Hatcher of Henry James spectral novella, The Turn of the Screw. Wildly successful when it was published in 1898, James’ book tapped into what was, at the time, a great popular interest in Spiritualism. That is, are there really such things as ghosts, and if they do exist, what are their intentions, and how can we make contact with them.

Hoping for popular success, James was also influenced by three of the greatest creators of horror stories: Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson (Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) and Bram Stoker (Dracula)

However, being the writer he was, James suffused his story with layers of ambiguity and moral ambivalence that clearly separate him from his more straightforward contemporaries. Here’s the plot:

An inexperienced and impoverished young woman, the daughter of a clergyman, answers an ad for what seems like a dream job: serve as governess to two young orphans, in an isolated country estate. The only other person there is the elderly housekeeper.

The employer (the children’s uncle) lives in London and has no interest in his wards beyond providing for them financially. His only condition on hiring her is that the governess must never contact him or report any problems. It will be her responsibility to deal with them herself. That’s what he is paying her for.

When she arrives at her new post, the governess is welcomed by the housekeeper, and learns that the lovely little girl, Flora, does not speak (though she understands what is said to her) and that the boy, Miles, who is supposed to be away at boarding school, has just been expelled, for “corrupting” the other boys (in unexplained ways).

Initially delighted by both the children and the setting, the governess begins to have troubling sensations — apparitions and voices that she isn’t sure are real or imaginary.

From the housekeeper she learns that her predecessor, Miss Jessel, who died under unclear circumstances, had been having some kind of relationship with a now-dead valet, a man named Peter Quint, and that the pair of them somehow “corrupted” the children by allowing them to see things that children should not see.

Forbidden to consult her employer, the governess is desperate to protect her charges from the malevolent spirits of Quint and his paramour, who seem set on seducing the children toward unspecified evil pathways. Thus, as thunder crackles and lightning flashes, she must struggle to wrest them from the clutches of dastardly unseen forces.

(Or is it all in the governess’s own troubled mind?)

Charlotte Parry, as the governess, and Tom Beckett, as everyone else (the narrator, the uncle, the housekeeper, the boy, et al)   are terrific actors. Will you like the show? That depends. Henry James fans should enjoy it hugely, and there were some in the audience.

I will make one suggestion though: Do not bring your children, unless they are deeply interested in stagecraft.  Otherwise they may hold it against you for a long time.

(Performances continue at Westport Country Playhouse, 25 Powers Court, Tuesday through Saturday evenings until October 27. There are also matinees on Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday.

The October 21 performance will feature opening captioning, and the October 25 show will be followed by a discussion with members of the company. Call 203-227-4177 for curtain details, reservations, and other information.)