Review - Anna In The Darkness

Before I get into this next review I want to tell you a little about myself. I have always been a fan of horror. Be it in the written form, movies, haunted houses, whatever, I have enjoyed horror from a very young age. I don’t equate ‘slasher’ movies or gore necessarily to horror. I believe that sound, angles, lighting setting has more to do with being horrific than some guy running around with a machete. I usually prefer my horror to be of a supernatural order or of a psychological nature.

So when I heard about this performance ‘Anna In The Darkness’ I was intrigued. The tag line for the play was:

‘A young teacher has barricaded herself in the basement while the entire bloodthirsty town masses to kill her… And lucky you... You're down in the darkness with her...’

They also put up a video trailer online that depicts scenes for the performance. After reading this and seeing the trailer I thought this would be a good show to see. The show is put on by the Dream Theatre Company which is a small theatre. I got there early and was able to talk with one the performer, Anna Weiler who plays the lead roll but was not the actress I saw that night as up to three actresses take turns playing the unfortunate victim.

The setting of the play takes place in the basement of Anna’s house. She has barricaded herself in the basement and lives in the darkness as she tries to fool her tormentors into thinking she is not there. They are not fooled and as the show progresses their torments continue and you learn what has lead up to Anna barricading herself down here as well you learn much about Anna’s past.

It is actually down in the basement of the theatre that the play takes place. The theatre itself is a renovated three flat building so the basement is just as the basement of a house is. You are not in the basement of some theatre but a low ceilinged, concrete floored, furnace burning basement. Half the length of one side of the basement has had chairs set up to accommodate the seating for the show. The chairs are a mish mash of lawn chairs, 1970’s plastic school/office chairs, wooden high back chairs and even a section of a sports stadium chairs linked together.

All around the basement ‘stage’ section creepy, iconic imagery has been used to set the tone of the play. There was an armless/headless wardrobe mannequin, a workbench cluttered with old paint cans and jars of nails, a solitary doll sits on the workbench, a vacant tricycle sits with its front wheel turned ever so slightly, colorful childish drawings hang in a neat row along the wooden ceiling beams, a strange arrangement of bricks standing up on end that resemble Stonehenge in miniature while a single box fan rattles away blowing cool air in your direction. Shadows wrap all around you as the only light comes for a single bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling, an old black and white television shinning it's white/blue light from the static that is on the screen and a lone candle that Anna is carrying.

It is a one woman performance with only one other player towards the very end of the show. The actress I saw was Megan Merrill. From the very beginning of the performance she captivates you. During the opening moments she appears from behind some scenery and comes forward holding her candle out in front of her. She walks as someone who can not see very well in the dark and moves her candle around to illuminate what she wants to see. Initially she walked directly at me and it almost seemed as though she was offering the candle to me. Stupidly I reached out to take it from her which she moved her hand away very quickly. Anna is actually looking over those in the audience and at times asks ‘Who are you people? What are you doing here?’ The Dream Theatres motto is “The 4th wall does not exist”, Megan did an excellent job of making that reality come to life and brings you right into the performance.

Anna begins to tell you what has happened up to this point and why she now hides in the basement. You are drawn into her story and your feeling go from feeling sorry for her to worrying about her safety. Megan’s eyes are penetrating and they mesmerize you as she weaves her unfortunate tale. I knew what was happening to Anna long before she knew what was happening to herself and there was nothing I could do about it. The end was as I thought it would be.

Megan’s performance is first rate. She holds your attention and she is a real character. You can understand her feelings and fears. Her character is not just someone out of a play, she is someone you know and in the short time you are there she is someone you care about. Her voice quivers and her body shivers, you can only come to one conclusion. She is genuinely scared for her well being. You want to tell her ‘don’t go over there’ or ‘get the hell out of this town’. But she won’t. Her destiny lies elsewhere. It came down to this, was it Anna in the darkness or Megan? Excellent performance.

With the setting being so right and the performance being so strong you would think this would have been just about been the best show I could have seen. Unfortunately it was not. I was not scared in the least and I figured out what was going to happen long before the show ended however the show almost made it. With the story being of a narrative nature I liked that. But it just didn’t reach that final feeling of dread and danger. It also was not completely what I thought it was going to be about.

I found it odd that several times during the performance some of the other viewers screamed out in horror. Perhaps it was more out of surprise but it still did not have that affect on me. I wanted it to but it did not. I have a theory that all of my years of viewing, reading even writing horror have desensitized me to more subtle horrors. This may have been a case of that.

This does not mean I did not like the show. I did, it just missed slightly for me. Because the performance by Megan was excellent and the setting was terrific I’m giving this 8 out of 10. This is an annual performance that they put on every year around Halloween and my understanding is that the ending can change with every performance so I may go back and try it again and see if I like it better in the future.