The Woman In Black
We went to watch the woman in black on stage on Saturday night at the fortune theatre. I had heard that it was pretty scary and cleverly done, so really looked forward to it. Thankfully it didn’t disappoint.
The story begins quite slowly – the main character, an older man and retired solicitor has sought the help of a young actor to help him to tell his story – a true story from his younger days that he feels he must tell his family in order to purge himself of it and finally put it to rest. These two men will play out the entire story with the young actor taking on the main character’s role and the older (whose story it is) playing out all those that he met on his journey. The tone is light and comical in places to start, instilling a false sense of security. Hearing the story through the actors in this way is a little jarring to begin as you feel yourself getting into the actual story just as it is stopped abruptly for the actors to discuss how they are acting it out. But again this all adds to the suspense and intrigue.
I won’t go into much more detail about the actual story than that, as I wouldn’t want to write any spoilers. But what I will say is that the lighting and sound effects were fantastic, the woman in black herself was very scary and moved as though she was floating.You could feel the suspense building around the entire room, as people held their breath and waited for whatever the next shock would be – and it didn’t get stale; I for one was unable to guess where the woman in black would appear next.
At times you felt everyone in the audience physically and audibly jump. My wife in fact threw her water in shock at one point – the man sat on her other side was very forgiving, thankfully.
I know I’ve not gone into much detail here, but let’s face it no-one likes to know the ending of these sort of things. A really great evening – a fantasticly spooky and jump-filled performance. I would suggest to anyone to go and see it – but make sure you take a friend with you.
