By Ernest Kearney — There is nothing so evasive as engendering effective and credible dread in a live theatre environment.
Films have it easy.
The screen looms over its audience transforming the slightest fright into a towering terror, the near total darkness of the house isolates us, the manipulation of the milieu is so complete and intense as to be the most efficient of tools in heightening and exploiting suspense.
Consider the contribution of John Williams’ theme for Jaws or the disturbing and relentless audio battering sequences in William Friedkin’s The Exorcist devised by Gonzalo Gavira; such as the cracking of Linda Blair’s neck bones in the infamous head-spinning scene.
Live theatre has no such dominance over its audience’s senses and the ever-visible presence of fellow theatregoers allows for the security our species has always found in the herd.
So, Christopher Lyons’ short one-act, Final Preparations, faces its challenges.
But Lyons, who also directs, starts off wisely enough, with the sounds of a deadly car “accident” occurring in the pre-show blackness.
From there the piece unfolds like a fairly good Night Gallery episode, opening with a spooky setting in a mortuary and the introduction of an odd mortician, aptly named “Poe,” who enjoys conversing with his clientele. In this case an eleven-year-old piano virtuoso who died in the car crash with her mother.
Lyons maintains a respectable level of creepiness with a smart use of blackouts and a nicely-worked sound score of “things going bump in the night.”
A revelation about the secret sideline Poe operates ups the ante — as far as the unsettling mood goes — and sets the stage for an ending right out of the pages of Eerie Magazine.
Overall, the show would have profited if Lyons’ performance had been a bit more grounded, and if he had built on the repeated blackouts, when both he and the audience were forced to fend off the horrors hidden in the darkness with only a flashlight’s weak beam as the sole light force.
Nevertheless, the show functioned well and dishes up a tidy serving of goosebumps: for that a SILVER MEDAL.
♦ ♦ ♦
Final Preparations
Played During The Hollywood Fringe Festival 2018.
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