DVxT Theatre presents The Turn of the Screw
Adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher from the story by Henry James
Starring Christine Horne and Clinton Walker
Directed by Vikki Anderson
Runs until November 7 @ Campbell House Museum
By Kerry Freek
“We are not alone at Bly.” As actor Christine Horne uttered this realization to Clinton Walker’s Mrs. Grose in horror, it struck me. No, they weren’t. Not merely were there ghosts in the garden, but a silent audience had followed them into the parlour of Campbell House Museum, the site of DVxT’s production of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw.
Adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher, this production could not have been mounted in a better Toronto location. Campbell House, built in 1822, is the oldest remaining building from the original town of York — and by candlelight, it’s remarkably spooky.
As we crept from room-to-room, the scenes of this thriller unfolded. A young, steadfast governess comes from London to Bly to care for two children, the recently orphaned Miles and Flora. The pair have been under the care of their uncle, who prefers to stay far away, and a warm old housekeeper. There’s one problem: they are, as we know, not alone.
As our unsuspecting protagonist becomes familar with mute, charming Flora (invisible to the audience) and welcomes Miles home from school, she begins noticing their odd behaviour. Miles turns up in the garden at twilight, looking up at the window from below. Flora wades out into the pond at the end of the garden. Our governess starts seeing a red-haired gentleman in a tower, and a woman dressed in black-and-red who beckons from the middle of the pond. A few words with Mrs. Grose confirms it: ghosts are haunting Bly.
Horne is brilliant in the role of the governess. For one, she has a beautifully structured face — with little to no makeup, she’s able to wear innocence, confidence, conviction, and even ghostliness. Over the course of the play, her character ages with fright but nary a costume change. Her anxiety is calculated, carefully elevated and never strained, even as her character begins losing confidence in her own ability to distinguish reality from madness. As the play progresses, however, she manages to temper her hysterics with reaffirmed belief that she knowing what children want: affection and protection.
Walker — first the narrator, then the Master, then Mrs. Grose, then possessed Miles, and ghost Peter Quint — is convincing in all of his roles. In fact, he could have done without his few visual props from character to character; his skillful portrayal of each character is enough to have the audience believing he’s a tremulous housekeeper, or a precocious 10-year-old boy.
My only real issue with the production came near its end. After traipsing up and down the creaky stairs of Campbell House by candlelight and sitting by the warm hearth of the basement kitchen, we came into a bedroom just before the final scene and were greeted by Horne, sitting in the darkness, holding a small device that projected images of two children upon the wall. This didn’t work for two reasons. Firstly, I rather liked that I’d been able to imagine impish Flora, and, to a lesser extent, Miles (even though Walker played this character, it seemed Miles could still be some other little boy, not a grown man with facial hair standing in for him). Their descriptions were more rewarding than their physical representations.
Secondly, I questioned the use of technology that followed the evening of candlelight. Why spend all of the production’s energy taking the audience away from 2009 and the busy streets of Toronto just to jolt them right back into it? The play’s climax certainly would not have been compromised if it had remained a period piece.
Despite this rude shock back into reality, this adaptation of The Turn of the Screw proved excellent. The actors clearly enjoyed themselves, flirting with both comedy and horror, and the audience was receptive and certainly up to the challenge of a site-specific, mobile production. All in all, it was seasonally appropriate, bone-chilling, well-performed and perfectly located.
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