There are few venues for live immersive entertainment as interestingly moody and fun as the McKittrick Hotel. My first experience, over a decade ago, was Sleep No More which is still running. The audience literally runs around a hotel. Other shows happen on different floors. Woman in Black is in the Club Car space. It is subtitled “a ghost story in a pub.” The English pub setting is ideal.
Apparently this show has been running in London for thirty years and was made into a movie starring Daniel Radcliffe. A fairly large sized audience grabs drinks and takes a seat facing the stage. An older man named Arthur Kipps (David Acton) comes out and begins reading his manuscript. He informs us that the story must be told as “I cannot carry the burden.”
A younger man, The Actor (Ben Porter), comes on stage to provide guidance to the purposefully boring resuscitation of this nightmarish tale. It is meta theater. It is fun for a moment or two. However, it goes on far too long before they jump into the story. We came for the “howlings and shrieking and groanings and scuttlings.” They do arrive in the form of an old fashioned creepy country house ghost story.
The Actor becomes the Solicitor who travels to the house via horse and carriage. The older man takes on the new character of the driver. They bounce along the unpaved roads in a spirited bit of whimsy. Both performers play multiple parts, changing jackets and hats along the way. Unfortunately the first act goes on far too long. All five of us were dying (pun intended) to get out of very uncomfortable chairs.
The solicitor arrives at the scary mansion and discovers there is much paperwork to go through. He tells us that his “main sensation is one of tedium.” We agree but for the wrong reasons. This play takes a very long time to get where it is going. Is the payoff worth the wait? No but the packed audience might disagree with my assessment.
There is nothing remarkable about the old school ghost story plot and the mysteries which are revealed. There are some effective scares allowing the audience jump and scream. That they do so vigorously means they really, really want to scream. I did not scream.
Both actors are reprising their roles from London. They are both intense and enjoyable to watch. The lighting (Anshuman Bhatia) and, especially, the sound effects (Sebastian Frost) are top notch. All of the ingredients are present for a delicious fall fright fest. The story length, however, sinks this one. Towards the end, revelations are thrust out in a mad dash to the finale. I was happy when it ended, sorry to say.
I did have one unexpected chuckle. When Mr. Porter was traversing the audience in fear, his face seemed an exact replica of Hugh Skinner who plays Prince William in the outrageous sitcom, The Windsors. Wishing you were watching something else is not a nice thing to say no matter how true.
Woman in Black is running at the Mc Kittrick Hotel until January 30, 2022.