I\u2019m too old for night terrors. But at my age, health insurance companies are a good deal more frightening than the devil. What\u2018s scarier, a world with demonic forces or a world with unforeseen medical bills? Give me Damien!<\/p>\n
In short, I assumed \u201cParanormal Activity,\u201d which just completed a run at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, wasn\u2019t for me. Boy, was I wrong. The production, which opened at the Ahmanson Theatre on Friday under the direction of Felix Barrett, is brilliantly pulled off. I caught myself wondering during the first act, \u201cIs this the best staged production of the year?\u201d<\/p>\n
I yelped in my seat. I reached for my companion a few times when panic overcame me. I closed my eyes when I knew something terrible was going to happen. The scenic and sound elements were synchronized to produce maximum terror. The illusions and projections had me seeing things I couldn\u2019t believe I was seeing. And yet what made the deepest impression on me was the lifelike situation of the young married couple at the center of the play, written and restaged by Levi Holloway, the author of the spooky Broadway play \u201cGrey House.\u201d<\/p>\n
James (Patrick Heusinger) and Lou (Cher \u00c1lvarez) have moved from Chicago to London for a fresh start. His company has put them up in a spacious home (by pricey London standards) with a few eerie quirks. The radiators make quite the racket and the electricity seems to have a mind of its own.<\/p>\n
Lou has been struggling with her mental health, though there\u2019s more going on than psychiatry can explain. James is doing his best to be a patient and understanding husband, but when Lou tells him about the strange things that have happened when she\u2019s alone, he can\u2019t help wondering whether she\u2019s been taking her meds.<\/p>\n
Coming upon their one-year anniversary, they seem to be figuring how to move forward as a couple. They love each other, but it feels like a make or break moment. One source of tension rises above the rest. James has built a nursery upstairs, but Lou isn\u2019t sure that it\u2019s the right time to try to have a baby.<\/p>\n
Carolanne (Shannon Cochran), James\u2019 pious mother in Boca Raton who makes intrusive video calls, is determined to have a grandbaby before she dies and worries that all Lou\u2019s psychiatric medications may be getting in the way. <\/p>\n
James grew up religious, but lost his faith. (He too ponders whether a world without ghosts is scarier than a world with them.) Lou assumes her husband is an atheist and doesn\u2019t understand when she discovers a Bible in the house. Mysterious things keep happening \u2014 music suddenly blasts, doors slam, the lights go out and the alarm system roars in the middle of the night. But \u201cParanormal Activity\u201d suggests \u2014 in a neo-Pinteresque fashion \u2014 that the unknowability of another person is more terrifying than supernatural pyrotechnics.<\/p>\n
In moments of conflict, Lou withdraws while James feverishly tries to engage. It seems like she\u2019s the one who\u2019s hiding something, but James\u2019 veneer of normality is not quite what it seems. They\u2019re both keeping secrets, but how exactly are their marital problems related to the inexplicable bumps in the night? <\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t understand at first why James and Lou didn\u2019t flee the house the moment shadows appeared out of nowhere. I would have booked a hotel room as soon as Alexa started taking cues from some unholy presence. But it\u2019s not the house that\u2019s haunted so much as the couple. Lou assumes she\u2019s to blame. A shadow, possibly related to the death of her parents in a house fire when she was a girl, has been tormenting her for ages. <\/p>\n
The trouble in Chicago has followed them to London. There seems to be no escape. Etheline Cotgrave (Kate Fry), a medium with her own podcast, pays an emergency visit to the house and detects not only dangerous occult activity but marital warning signs. When all hell breaks loose during her quasi-scientific seance, she recognizes that the problem is beyond her capacities and that the house spells their doom. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cher \u00c1lvarez in \u201cParanormal Activity\u201d at Chicago Shakespeare Theater.<\/p>\n
(Kyle Flubacker)<\/p>\n