Spinning Tree’s Turn of the Screw takes hold

October 20, 2015

Deborah Hirsch,

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The night I saw Spinning Tree Theatre’s Turn of the Screw, the Royals were in the third inning of the first ALCS game when the curtain went up. At the 80-minute show’s end, the home team was in the sixth — but I hadn’t given the game a thought during the play. I was too wrapped up in Jeffrey Hatcher’s two-actor adaptation of Henry James’ well-known ghost story.

Charles Fugate’s deep-voiced narrator awakens the spirit of Vincent Price as, seated in a high-backed chair on a darkened stage, he begins this story, a seduction of sorts, which he says transpired years before. With no props or special effects, Fugate and Nicole Marie Green convey a multi-character tale on a simple set (design by Charles Moore, with lighting by Shane Rowse) composed of nothing more than a chair, a rug, a staircase and a door. They get a workout, their energetic and skillful performances propelling the plot and ultimately increasing our adrenaline to an eighth-inning level.

Fugate portrays several roles, including a London-dwelling bachelor who interviews a young governess (Green) for the job of overseeing his orphaned nephew and niece, who live on the remote estate he calls Bly. He wants nothing to do with the children’s rearing and demands no communication from the governess once she’s in place there. The inexperienced woman, clearly attracted to the man, leaves with romanticized images of Jane Eyre in her head, an innocence that’s soon challenged.

The governess is the primary driver here, relating her perceptions and experiences of the secrets and murky goings-on at Bly. (The talented Green delivers a tremendous amount of monologue and dialogue to move the story, and she keeps us engaged.) A repressed sexuality and a lonely religious upbringing might influence the governess’s mental state, but are they the causes of the specters and supernatural events she claims to witness?

Under the direction of Julie Shaw, the story develops slowly (a bit too slowly at one point), its details and events turning with a governess-impelled energy that builds throughout. The show uses no background music or sound, lending the house a dominant stillness in those slower moments.

Lurking in the shadows, back turned between his scenes, Fugate fluidly shifts among his roles, completely and uncannily selling the 10-year-old Miles and the older housekeeper, Mrs. Grose, both of whom affect, and are affected by, this governess’s imaginings and actions. Is Miles possessed or just a typically naughty boy? Fugate’s deft portrayal doesn’t make the distinction a simple one for us. (The younger child, Flora, is unseen and uncast in Hatcher’s version of the play — so traumatized by an event on the estate, she no longer speaks, and her character is depicted only through the others’ interactions and descriptions.)

As absorbing as the actors’ performances is the period dress worn by Green (costumes by Georgianna Londré Buchanan), with its intricate details and layers. Like the ambiguous nature of this story, the dark fabric of the dress gives off a different hue depending on the light or the actress’s stance.

To get to the truth of this tale, we must rely on the inner workings of the governess’s mind as much as on our own observations, but the result at the end is the same. And whether she’s highly suggestive or ghosts haunt the estate is up to us to determine.