Last night, we did dinner and a show. Dinner was at Big Sky, and the show was the Rep’s production of Emma. This rather campy treatment of the Jane Austen novel of the same name was written by Kate Hamill. It is chuck full of modern reference, sexual inuendo and features extensive breaking of the fourth wall. Emma is the story of a wealthy aristocratic woman with a penchant for meddling in other people’s lives. Set during England’s Regency period this show is a comical mix of 18th-century mores and modern sensibilities. It makes for an amusing and light fare, perfect for entertaining the holiday crowds.

We are a week out from Halloween, the height of the scary season. Decorations litter neighborhood lawns. So, it is natural or rather unnatural to expect spooky themed entertainment to abound. For a month now streaming services have bulked up on Halloween fare. The Reps latest offering, The Woman in Black, is similarly themed. Based upon Susan Hill’s gothic horror novel, as adapted for the stage by Stephen Mallatratt, it is currently the second longest running play in London’s West End. Cast members from that production performed in Saint Louis for this show. The cast is small, just three actors.

The Woman in Black is based on the Susan Hill gothic horror novel of the same name. It follows an accountant, Arthur Kipps, hired to review the accounts of the deceased Alice Drablow. He travels to Mrs. Drablow’s country manor house to discover, in the manner of all great ghost stories, disturbing noises and a mysterious woman in black with a skeletal face. The Woman in Black has all the tropes of gothic horror: a house in the middle of a formidable countryside, a room with a locked door holding a mysterious secret, and a woman gone mad haunting the house. And as Kipps explores the house, as an audience member, there’s an urge to shout, “Don’t open the door!” horror-film style—New York Theater Guide

This play makes repeated use of the jump scare, a technique in horror, designed to startle an audience by using a sudden, unexpected image or sound. These scares often rely on building suspense and then disrupting it with a loud noise or a shocking visual, like a creepy face, to elicit a physical reaction such as a gasp or a startle. While they can be effective when used with a slow build-up, they are often considered a controversial and sometimes cheap tactic, when overused.

I am not a big fan of horror. I find that there are more than enough horrible people in real life that reaching for something supernatural is superfluous. This play makes use of many tropes. In addition to that jump scare thing, its whole setting is bordering on the cliché “it was a dark and stormy night” territory. This play also uses the old play within a play crutch, or rather a rehearsal within a play, since what we are presented is supposed to be a rehearsal. Still, I can see why this show has aged so well. Its small cast makes it economical to produce. Its smaller set design makes it cheaper still. Horror has always been an avenue for low budget entertainment. If you turn off all of the lights, the audience is left alone in the dark with only their imagination for company. It is upon this facet that this show preys best.