Eldritch Theatre/ Two Weird Tales! (Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka and At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft), adapted by Eric Woolfe, directed by Mairi Babb, Red Sandcastle Theatre, Apr. 20 to Apr. 30. Tickets here.
The name of the company says it all, the meaning of the word eldritch being weird, sinister or ghostly. Clearly, actor, producer, adapter Eric Woolfe likes things served with Grand Guignol. He also has a most original way of presentation.
The two weird tales are sincerely weird. In Kafka’s Metamorphosis, a man one day wakes up as a giant bug, and we watch as his family tries to cope with the change. What a statement about the treatment of “the different” Kafka has made.
In Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness, a university geologist desperately tries to stop another university from sponsoring a research trip to Antarctica. The burden of his frantic lecture is all the terrible things that happened to his own expedition that left only two survivors, one of whom is in an asylum. Apparently, there are horrible killing-machine creatures roaming around Antarctica.
Woolfe is an astonishing performer. As well as acting up a storm, he also manoeuvres puppets around, as well as incorporating magic tricks. Thus, Two Weird Tales! is more than just a play. It is also a puppet show and a magic show. Nonetheless, I have to point out that even if both one-act plays contain puppets and magic, they each are rendered through very different treatments. As well, the puppets and magic are logically integrated into the narrative of the plays, which includes audience participation.
In other words, Woolfe may have his staple performance tools, but he can play with them. Metamorphosis is told entirely through puppets on a maquette of Gregor’s house, designed by Lindsay Anne Black. The puppets of the humans (Gregor’s parents and sister) are sort of bobbleheads which are moved by their arms and a back tab. Woolfe, garbed in sloppy dressing gown and pajamas, does all the voices as he moves these puppets all about the maquette. This play also has an original nervous, edgy score by Michael McClennan.
At the Mountains of Madness is performed like a lecture with Woolfe at a podium. There is a screen behind him for pertinent projections. The camera is also live, capturing pictures that Woolfe pulls out of a briefcase, and which are flashed on the screen. Now dressed as an absent-minded professor, in a de rigueur baggy suit, tie and knitted vest, Woolfe keeps pulling strange things out of boxes, designed by Melanie McNeill, to act as evidence for his harangue. His growing hysteria as he tries to make his case is a marvel.
For both acts, the stage is strewn with boxes, suitcases and steamer trunks. The various props, and there are many, are meticulously made, while Michael Brunet’s lighting cleverly concentrates on trying to create mystery through shadows. This is a show of details, and director Mairi Babb has been scrupulous in her handling of both the actor, and the complicated sets and props.
I genuinely believe that Eldritch Theatre’s audience needs to have an imaginative mind that accepts the fantastical. You also have to enjoy entertainment on the dark side.
Get the daily arts news straight to your inbox.