My overall impression
You know what? I LOVED THIS SHOW.
Sure, it starts off with some typical tropes from the horror genre: the hot, bitchy sorority girl; the clueless boyfriend who seems to be ASKING for it; the know-it-all instigator who may end up getting what he deserves; and the unpopular girl trying to fit in. Throw them all into a “haunted” location and you get the same movie your mom forbade you to watch that you saw over and over again anyway.
But the script AND the cast find new dimensions to these cliches to make the story original. Using the dim and often unreliable illumination of the fabled “ghostlight” of theater tradition and the supernatural reason for its existence is a stroke of brilliance, and playwrite Dan Spurgeon uses this play on light to chilling effect. And when he illuminates what might REALLY be going on, he reveals a refreshing perspective that is RARELY explored in ghost fiction – something you’ll be mulling over long after the screams die down.
But those screams are what you came for, and director John. B McCormick does NOT disappoint. Capitalizing on whodunit moments, strobe, blackouts, offstage frights and other theatrical magic tricks, the play had many in MY audience shrieking for dear life – sometimes in COMPLETE DARKNESS. It REALLY creeped ME out, too. And you have GOT to see the, um, “antagonist” in question. It was one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen on stage. I haven’t seen a play use the tools of the trade this well since Zombie Joe’s Urban Death.
Why don’t more theaters do more ghost stories? They’ve got everything: the required dialogue (how else can you set up and tell a ghost story?); frequently, little to no set is needed; and finally, the audience’s imagination often creates horrors far greater than what they can actually see (scares are often FAR more effective offstage and in blackouts – see M. Night Shyamalan’s best stuff). Ghostlight takes effective advantage of ALL of these weapons, attacking the stage and the audience with an UNFORGETTABLE night of chills and thrills.
Then why don’t more theaters do more ghost stories? Maybe because they KNOW that they WON’T be as good as Ghostlight.
At the time of this writing, there are only two shows left. Go see it.