Garth Holcombe as The Actor in The Woman in Black. Photo: Daniel Boud
The Woman in Black is back, risen from lockdown to once more spirit around the Ensemble stage.
It can be hard to make melodrama work on stage but Jamie Oxenbould and Garth Holcombe pull us right into this Edwardian-era ghost story. From the first banter between the diffident and worried Mr Kipps and the supremely confident Actor he has hired to tell his troubling story, all the way through to escalation of fear and confusion in the final scenes, these two actors under the direction of Mark Kilmurry hook us in. Lighting, sound and set are never been more important than in telling a tale such as this, when the audience is asked to imagine misty marshes in England, feel the chill in the air and wonder at mysterious noises and unexplained apparitions, so an early credit to lighting designer Trudy Dalgleish, sound designer Michael Walters and to Hugh O’Connor for set and costume design. A true ensemble effort.
Mr Kipps (Oxenbould) is a junior lawyer whose work took him to an isolated, fog-bound house reachable, in true Gothic style, only by a causeway when the tide is low. There he attended to the affairs of the recently deceased Mrs Drablow, but also witnessed events he would rather forget. He has written them all down and hopes to exorcise his demons via a presentation, but seeks professional help in the telling. Enter The Actor (Holcombe).
The Actor soon tires of Kipps’s stumbling, bumbling delivery and in no time at all we have Holcombe enacting the role of the younger Mr Kipps and taking his journey to Eel Marsh House in Crithyn Gifford, while Oxenbould plays everyone else and deftly slips between the personas of village locals such as Mr Jerome and Keckwith. Oxenbould makes this look effortless. His Jerome is cautious and fearsome. A change of cap and he is the stoic, down-to-earth Keckwith, who rides an invisible pony and trap with consummate ease to young Mr Kipps’ evident delight. A great little cameo moment.
But this is a ghostly tale and as the ‘altogether more terrible’ truth unfolds we must expect fleeting visions of the woman in black, and along with Kipps we must hear the strange and ghastly sounds of a pony and trap falling off the causeway, screams and the sobbing wails of a child. We must wonder what is behind the locked door and what is the meaning of the sound that emanates from it, haunting Kipps at night.
In this set, we get but a shaded glimpse of the room behind that locked door, one that in the novel is more vivid compared to the drab browns in the rest of Eel Marsh house, but Stephen Mallatratt’s adaption of Susan Hill’s story works well. This is a play within a play and is about theatre, and the evocative power of good acting, not high-tech thrills and CGI. Oxenbould and Holcombe can show us their fear and suspense and those with the relevant imaginations can dream up untold terrors. It may not have you jumping out of your seat, but it’s a story well told and a comfortable scare.
All very good clean, ghostly fun.
Unti 12 December at The Ensemble, Kirribilli. https://www.ensemble.com.au
