FestBuzz

What: The Doubt­ful Guest, by Edward Gorey and Hoipol­loi
Where: Tra­verse The­atre
When: 18 – 30 August (not 24) (show­times vary)
How Much: £5 – 18

In 140 char­ac­ters or less: “A Gorey clas­sic brought to vibrant life in all its whim­si­cal, sin­is­ter, comic glory.  Inspired act­ing and delec­tably omi­nous atmosphere.”

Edward Gorey’s quaintly eerie illus­tra­tions and macabre sto­ries have achieved a cult fol­low­ing.  While The Doubt­ful Guest is not one of his more grue­some tales, its play­ful ambi­gu­ity offers much mate­r­ial to work with in a the­atri­cal per­for­mance.  Hoipol­loi seize the oppor­tu­nity with gusto, and their ver­sion of this much-loved story pre­serves its kooky, inexplicable qual­i­ties while tak­ing the atmos­phere of lurk­ing mad­ness to new heights.

Gorey’s work is whim­si­cally gothic, with images harken­ing back to Vic­to­rian book illus­tra­tions and plots that walk a fine line between humour and hor­ror.  His rhyming text for The Doubt­ful Guest, which appears on a screen high above the stage dur­ing Hoipolloi’s per­for­mance, is sim­ple, unelab­o­rate.  Noth­ing explic­itly ter­ri­fy­ing hap­pens in this story, yet the illus­tra­tions indi­cate that this is indeed a hugely dis­rupt­ing episode in the char­ac­ters’ lives.  In the the­atre, these images are allowed to come to life, speak and scream, and the fear and dis­or­der under­ly­ing the selec­tive text vividly emerge.

The cast bril­liantly give life to Gorey’s quirky char­ac­ters with strongly phys­i­cal, per­fectly timed per­for­mances.  When we first meet the Bishop fam­ily, they are elderly, frag­ile, hes­i­tant — yet still pos­sessed of an endear­ingly child­like quality. The tale is pre­sented as a play within a play, as the char­ac­ters attempt to explain to their audi­ence the story of their unusual expe­ri­ence.  This leaves ample room for the script to play with the con­ven­tions of the the­atre, as the char­ac­ters labo­ri­ously explain each the­atri­cal device to the audi­ence with hilar­i­ous sin­cer­ity.  The inter­play of real­ity and illu­sion is a recur­ring theme through­out the show, and while the con­trast is at first delib­er­ately abrupt, even­tu­ally the Bishop’s family’s “per­for­mance” takes off and we enter the sur­real world of Gorey’s orig­i­nal story.

The Bish­ops are a quiet fam­ily who lived a retir­ing life until one wild winter’s night when they acci­den­tally allow a strange crea­ture into their house.  The thing refuses to leave, and in the mean­time wreaks havoc within their spa­cious, orderly home.  It is never explained what the crea­ture is, or why the fam­ily does not sim­ply remove it by force, though they even­tu­ally acknowl­edge in a later, more bit­ter moment that this is what they should have done.  This is all part of the delight­ful absur­dity of Gorey’s vision, per­fectly cap­tured in the per­for­mance, in which the adult world and adult reac­tions are refracted through a child­like mindset.

The play excels in cre­at­ing atmos­phere, with lights and a haunt­ing orig­i­nal score employed to cap­ture and amplify the under­ly­ing eeri­ness of Gorey’s oeu­vre.  The story is unset­tling, yet still highly humor­ous, and the increas­ing des­per­a­tion of the char­ac­ters’ sit­u­a­tion builds to a fan­tas­tic finale in which illu­sion finally over­takes real­ity and the chaos unstage escapes into the audience’s realm.  All in all, The Doubt­ful Guest offers a delight­ful detour through a world of whimsy and ter­ror.  This is sump­tious the­atre, quirky, engag­ing and ever-varied.

Fes­t­buzz Rating:

Words: Domenica Goduto