Horror on Stage

According to CM Humphries: the 5 elements of a Good Horror Story are as follows:

1. Fear
2. Surprise
3. Suspense
4. Mystery
5. and SPOILERS!

Actually a pretty good little article. I think the most interesting thing is that the fear is not necessarily of something the audience is afraid of--hence the surprise: where the storyteller makes use of the audience's imagination. Because the audience can imagine something way scarier to themselves than you. When we talk theatre, they're actually sitting there having brought their imaginations to specifically use with you. Such a gift! [*am a little bit hippie dweeby* RIDE IT]

So then they audience is afraid of something, they're imagining it happening, waiting for it to happen--and suspense! Which is followed by mystery of how it will happen, when, and why?

His most interesting point is that spoilers at the beginning make everything else richer and deeper because then the audience is examining every word and nod looking for what they know is coming or what they hope is true. Ex. People seeing Insidious 2 know that camera spoiler from the end of Insidious. So we go in looking for it! OMG where is it, when will it come out! Etc Etc. 

Humphries has some great basic elements!

He is, however, discussing writing a story, not performing it onstage.

So how do we create fear onstage?

I can tell you that some of the things that work in movies and novels DON'T work in the theatre.

For example, I saw a production with vampires in a tiny 20'X15' space and they were this kind of vampire:

with canes, hissing, and too much white face paint

The effect was comical. It was unfortunate. And while the production had them do some TRULY disturbingly realistic fight choreography in the realm of rape and murder. Their vampire-ness was laughable rather than other-worldly. So there was no fear, no suspense really. Instead the production relied on gore and shock value. Lots of blood and lots of REALLY VIOLENT choreography. I am willing to admit that this may have been a choice in such a violent and bloody play, make the vampires funny to relieve the tension--but it was really confusing and awful. I think Supernatural makes a good point: 

"Dean! It's just people!"

So then, we have the upper hand right? In theatre, we have just people! And yet, somehow, the ghost scene in Hamlet is always a little weird too, right? Man walks out in the fog and starts all "Hamlet I am your father, you uncle shanked me in the ear! Fucker..."

In the last production of Hamlet that I did <plug: catch it on a remount Thanksgiving weekend 2 nights only!> we used a really unique blackout and sensory experience for the ghost. Audience and actors plunged into darkness with a music box (creepy) and the smell of perfume. To be fair, in that production, because the concept was women in an asylum putting on Hamlet, there was no illusion on the part of the performers in trying to make it as tho a ghost had entered the room. And so, instead--JUST PEOPLE--but damn it was creepy!

There was absolutely suspense and fear because the audience didn't know which actor was playing the ghost or why. They didn't know what was happening, but they also knew that it was Hamlet--so ghost scene, pretty predictable. They're looking for it, but it's in a new and surprising way. Ha! 

Another production: Let the Right One In the London show at the Apollo Theatre. 

It was pretty damn cool. And yes, pretty damn scary. They started with a fantastic story, which went from novel, to screen, to stage. The horror story is damn good. It's about a little boy who meets a child vampire in a little town in Sweden. And hotdamn! It's scary. But again, I like to beat this drum. It comes back to people. People are scarier than the vampire. The vampire is obvious--s/he needs to eat blood to survive--hence death. S/he is creepy fast, creepy smelling, and creepy intellectually (being a hundreds year old child). But the story is really about the bullies that the little boy faces and just how much he's willing to do for love versus how much he's willing to do for fear. It's just people--so the production again focuses on the boy and the surprising part of the story is that the people are scarier. The suspense and spoiler are in knowing that the girl is a vampire and waiting for that to really kick into gear. And the horror--the fear--is that the people are worse. You were scared of vampires first, but now you're scared of people. You're scared of the boy.  

The landscape is beautiful and so magical with white snow falling through birch trees that reach up into the rafters and the ceiling. But we only get tastes of her/his otherness as a vampire while we watch the boy change and grow through the constant bullying, the neglect of his parents, and the loving friendship with this child vampire. Hmmmmm..... 

This brings me to probably my favorite horror play that I've seen--The Woman in Black, produced by students at WSU's Studio Theatre. 

These kids did so well! All of their set and costumes came out of a box. It seemed like there were 3 actors--in actuality closer to 7? And they managed to create jump scare after jump scare using the same technique of bringing a woman in black into an aisle in the dark then flipped a blasting light on her while playing a scream sound cue. God it was scary. 

I keep coming back wondering why this one was so scary. The set was minimal--most of it came out of a trunk. And most of the story was told by two characters, the author--the storyteller and the man who played everyone else. The isolation effect was in play. It was a small space so just us, the storyteller and our collective imaginations. We knew, because the set was so limited, that our imaginations were required. The lighting was low, and hot damn.

We knew we were all pretending and that made all of the jump scares even scarier--almost like we all cuddle up around the campfire and then the tale teller is not pulling punches!

So the production told us they wouldn't use illusion -- the minimal set: i.e. this is all memory, imagination; but then they used REALLY effective illusion to bump up the supernatural moments. Ex. "I saw this woman" cue SCREAM LIGHT WOMAN!!! audience: "WHAT?? OMG we saw her too!!"

Conclusions? Not sure yet. But the storytelling and inviting the audience's imagination seem extremely important for the stage. Letting the audience know that they're part of it, they're in on it--spoilers--means that they get to take part in the magic, they get to look for what's coming. And that's really exciting. Hmmm.... 

Food for thought. >.>