Theatre 2025: The Woman in Black @ CAA Theatre

I am not a fan of horror, be it in movies or plays.  So as much as I was apprehensive about watching The Veil at Crow’s Theatre, I dreaded watching Mirvish’s production of The Woman in Black even more.  While both these plays are considered “Gothic Horrors” that use mood, atmosphere and anticipation to rachet up suspense, The Veil was more psychologically eerie while The Woman in Black leaned into the “jump-scare” moments.

Based on a 1983 Gothic Horror novel of the same name by Susan Hill, the 1987 stage play The Woman in Black was adapted by Stephen Mallatratt using the same basic premise but wrapping the story in a “play within a play” as a framing device.  Elderly solicitor Arthur Kipps has written and wants to perform a play detailing the traumatic events that he endured as a young man, as a way to exorcise his demons.  He hires an actor (unnamed and referred to as “Actor”) to help hone his performance. But it quickly becomes clear that he does not have the skills to effectively convey his tale.  Instead, it is decided that Actor will portray the young Kipps while elderly Kipps plays all the other characters in the story.  Lighting cues are used to differentiate the inner play (Kipp’s tale) vs the outer play (the interactions between old Kipp and Actor as they plan the scenes).

Young solicitor Arthur Kipps is hired to settle the estate of the deceased Mrs. Drablow. Kipps travels to the remote (and fictional) coastal village of Crythin Gifford to attend her funeral and visit her mansion, Eel Marsh House, in order to review her papers.  While there, he is met with fear and suspicion from the villagers who refuse to accompany him to the manor.  Both at the cemetery and in the house, he spots a ghostly woman dressed all in black with a ghoulish, skeletal face and hears the sounds of screams, a child crying, and a pony and cart plunging into the surrounding marsh.  Eventually Arthur learns that the ghost is the vengeful, malevolent spirit of Jennet Humfrye, the sister of Alice Drablow who had adopted the unwed Jennet’s son Nathaniel.  Going mad after watching her son and his nursemaid drown in the marsh one foggy night, Jennet now haunts the village and wreaks revenge by causing the deaths of children related to anyone who sees her.

As much as I don’t enjoy being scared for two hours, or even worse, the anticipated dread of waiting to be scared, I did admire the acting performances and especially the stagecraft used to set the mood.  For the most part, the play is a two-hander performed with a minimalist set and a rack of coats, hats, scarves and canes that transform the elderly Kipps into the various village people.  The rest is left up to the audience’s imagination, aided by vivid dialog accompanied by effects of dim lighting, shadows, smoke, fog, and sound effects including rumbling of a train, crows cawing, the clip-clopping of a horse and cart that takes Kipps to the mansion, the thudding of a rocking chair in the middle of the night, anguished neighing horses plunging into water and bloodcurdling screams emanating from the back of the theatre.  A third actor pops up throughout the play as the eponymous Woman in Black and waiting for her appearances serves as one of the main sources of tension and foreboding in this play.

The Woman in Black is the second longest running non-musical play in London’s West End, trailing only Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap.  I thought it was strange to schedule such a play at Christmas as opposed to Halloween (although there might not have been much choice given that this is a traveling production).  But Arthur Kipps first line talks about Christmas Eve, so maybe that qualifies this as a “Christmas play” after all … as much as Die Hard is a Christmas movie.