Wicked Lit

Reviewed by Vanessa Cate
Unbound Productions
Through November 12

RECOMMENDED

Wicked Lit has made quite a name for itself over the past several years. At a time when both immersive theatre and Halloween entertainment are in vogue, Wicked Lit is in a prime spot to capitalize on both. Just the novelty of wandering through a graveyard and actual mausoleum would be enough to attract fans of the macabre. But Unbound Productions does not employ the common spook tactics of your run-of-the-mill haunt. Instead, audiences are shown three distinct short plays of high quality. This is theatre. This is horror. This is an event. And this is possibly the best thing you can do if you’re looking to take in a bit of dramatic art during the Halloween season.

This year — the 8th of this annual immersive theater event — begins in Camp Mountain View, a strange summer camp presided over by an androgynous vampire, Big Papa (Kevin Dulude). The camp counselors are friendly monsters: Peggy (Meghan Lewis) is a perky zombie who keeps her hunger for human flesh at bay successfully enough to be an Director of Enthusiasm. Howie (Sam Silverstein) is a lycanthrope both charming and appropriately feral. A joker and a trouble maker, he is kept in check by being fed pills, and the irresistible urge to “fetch”. And Annie-Jane (Jennifer Novak Chun) is an artist turned ghost after the pressures of music competition push her to take her own life. (She at times delights with actual live music, when she’s not trying to keep the other two in line, or else hosting strange arts and crafts.) Together, they banter, interact with the audience, and lay down the ground rules for the evening, while separately each furnishes a frightening story to be told around the campfire between the three main plays.

“Anansi and the Demons,” the evening’s lightest fare, transports us to early colonial Africa. Two soldiers, Lucas (Guy Picot) and Nigel (Eric Cire) are in search of a missing man. The audience must follow them through a graveyard, where they meet British Ambassador Sutherland (Chairman Barnes) and native Pak Kenwe (Tory N. Thompson). With the help of the powerful Anansi (Jacquelin Schofield), demons are summoned in the hopes that lives can be saved. Directed by Jaime Robledo and adapted by the group’s executive director, Jonathan Josephson, from West African folktales and proverbs, the piece makes powerful use of puppets (designed by Joe Seeley) and provides imaginative horror, though the ending is a bit fluffy.

H.P. Lovecraft’s “From Beyond,” adapted by Trey Nichols and directed by Jeff G. Rack with a truly authentic 1940’s film noir feel, is convincingly cinematic. The piece is lit to perfection by Jeffery Elias Teeter, its excellence best exemplified in a scene in a police station that employs the gorgeous chiaroscuro that so defined the look and feel of that specific film era. Richard Mooney as the buoyant Detective Littlewit acts as a story guide here, and he and Richard Large’s Inspector Theobald create the perfect old-timey police duo. The brunt of the piece falls on the shoulders of Eric Keitel, who portrays the gentle and believable protagonist, Dr. Howard Phillips. Though his crazed friend Crawford Tillinghast (Dusty Hess) could have done with a less cartoonish approach, the piece still soars and leaves us delighted and unsettled.

Finally, Paul Millet’s adaptation of Ellen Glasgow’s “The Shadowy Third”, directed by Bruce Gray, garners the most emotional gravitas of the evening. Dr. Maradick (Michael Perl) recruits the help of novice psycho-doctor Margaret Randolph (Brooke Clendenen) to hospitalize his allegedly insane wife Charlotte (Hannah Whiteoak). Of course nothing is what it appears at first, and the truth of the situation is even more horrible than the supernatural element that plays out so nicely. The ensemble is rounded out by McKenzie Eckels as the beautiful maid Rebecca and Paul Myrvold as our academic story guide. The piece enjoys several strong female characters — Dr. Randolph, a cute young woman, is also determined, capable and and does not shy away even when danger presents itself. Whiteoak’s Charlotte, beautifully performed, is horrific and heartbreaking. And if Perl’s overall look seems out of place for this otherwise authentically 1920’s scenario, it is a fault easily overlooked.   

Wicked Lit wholly deserves its reputation as a go-to destination during Halloween, and the work of the entire crew should be celebrated for bringing classics, literature and good theater to a wider audience during the season.

Wicked Lit at Mountain View Mausoleum & Cemetery, 2300 N. Marengo Ave. Altadena; Thurs.-Sun., 7:30 p.m. (additional performance Monday October 31st); through November 12. Tickets: (323)322-2065 or wickedlit.org Running time: Approximately three hours with two intermissions.