BRATTLEBORO — If January doesn't chill you, then the Vermont Theatre Company's first production of 2013 certainly will.
The ghostly “The Woman in Black” by the late Stephen Mallatratt appears through the VTC's tender mercies at the Hooker-Dunham Theater, 139 Main St., Friday and Saturday, Jan. 18-19, and 25-26, at 7:30 p.m.; and Sundays, Jan. 20 and 27, at 3 p.m.
The play is directed by Jessica Callahan Gelter, and has a cast of two: Clark Glennon and Richard Epstein.
Gelter warns “'The Woman in Black' will draw you in, play on your primal fears, and give you goose bumps.”
“The Woman in Black” began as a moderately popular 1983 gothic novel by Susan Hill, and it picked up speed after Mallatratt adapted it for the stage, Gelter said.
The play premiered in London's West End in 1989 and is still performed there, becoming the second longest-running non-musical play in the history of the West End, after “The Mousetrap.”
Hill's book also was adapted for the 2012 film of the same name, starring Daniel Radcliffe, Janet McTeer, and Ciarán Hinds, directed with a new interpretation by James Watkins.
The story concerns a young lawyer who had been sent to sort out the estate of a reclusive old woman, unaware of the tragic secrets lurking there, and the personal costs he will bear.
Gelter says, “The framework of this play really appealed to me because I love the idea of processing trauma through storytelling, and that is what the lawyer character is trying to do. This sort of therapeutic sharing is an ancient practice and sharing one's own trauma can help others grow and move on from their own."
To enhance the production experience, VTC has rented the gallery at the Hooker-Dunham Theater and Gallery, and is hosting selected photos from David Mazor's advanced photography class as a haunting accompaniment.
Mallatratt had said, “The intent [of “The Woman in Black”] is to frighten - if it doesn't, it's nothing. The fear is not on a visual or visceral level, but an imaginative one. There are no gouts of blood or any but the simplest of special effects.”
Gelter said she is pleased to be performing this production in the old Hooker-Dunham.
“It's a perfect place for a ghost play,” she says, “dark and creepy.”