From the decrepit clerk, to the jaunty man on the train, to the taciturn wagon driver whose lower lip sticks out, he changes his voice, posture, movement, and even face to inhabit each character. If Arthur has never acted a day in his life, Acton is a master of the craft. At first reluctant and uncertain, he gradually warms up to the idea of acting out his story, and winds up playing nearly everyone except himself. A locked door swings open, magnetically forcing us into the heart of some unseen horror.ĭavid Acton plays the older Arthur, haunted by the past he's trying to escape. We're trapped in a spooky pub with two actors and a ghost, and there's nowhere to go. A staging in the creaky, low-lit McKittrick Hotel only deepens our immersion. Real not because it is true, but because it is convincing. As the two men rehearse their "play," we, the audience, are ushered into Arthur's memory until the space between past and present vanishes and the line between theatre and reality itself becomes ghostly.Īdapted by Stephen Mallatratt from Susan Hill's novel, and directed by Robin Herford, The Woman in Black is a very real ghost story. And yet, determined to finally move on, Arthur ends up engaging a professional actor to help him deliver the chilling narrative. When his family asks him for a ghost story, Arthur Kipps declines, on the grounds that the story he has to tell is not the type of entertaining thriller they want to hear. David Acton and Ben Porter in The Woman in Black.
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