‘Paranormal Exercise’ overview: Display screen to stage horror

What’s scarier, a world with ghosts or a world with out them?

I contemplated this query on the drive downtown to see “Paranormal Exercise,” a stage play based mostly on the Paramount Photos film franchise of the identical title. I confess that I’ve not seen any of the seven movies within the collection. But it surely’s not snobbery that has saved me away. I’m nonetheless recovering from my grandmother having taken me as a child to see “Damien — Omen II.”

I’m too outdated for evening terrors. However at my age, medical health insurance firms are a great deal extra scary than the satan. What‘s scarier, a world with demonic forces or a world with unexpected medical payments? Give me Damien!

In brief, I assumed “Paranormal Exercise,” which simply accomplished a run at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, wasn’t for me. Boy, was I unsuitable. The manufacturing, which opened on the Ahmanson Theatre on Friday underneath the path of Felix Barrett, is brilliantly pulled off. I caught myself questioning through the first act, “Is that this the very best staged manufacturing of the 12 months?”

I yelped in my seat. I reached for my companion a couple of instances when panic overcame me. I closed my eyes after I knew one thing horrible was going to occur. The scenic and sound parts had been synchronized to supply most terror. The illusions and projections had me seeing issues I couldn’t imagine I used to be seeing. And but what made the deepest impression on me was the lifelike scenario of the younger married couple on the heart of the play, written and restaged by Levi Holloway, the creator of the spooky Broadway play “Gray Home.”

James (Patrick Heusinger) and Lou (Cher Álvarez) have moved from Chicago to London for a recent begin. His firm has put them up in a spacious residence (by dear London requirements) with a couple of eerie quirks. The radiators make fairly the racket and the electrical energy appears to have a thoughts of its personal.

Lou has been struggling along with her psychological well being, although there’s extra happening than psychiatry can clarify. James is doing his greatest to be a affected person and understanding husband, however when Lou tells him in regards to the unusual issues which have occurred when she’s alone, he can’t assist questioning whether or not she’s been taking her meds.

Coming upon their one-year anniversary, they appear to be figuring the right way to transfer ahead as a pair. They love one another, nevertheless it seems like a make or break second. One supply of rigidity rises above the remainder. James has constructed a nursery upstairs, however Lou isn’t positive that it’s the fitting time to attempt to have a child.

Carolanne (Shannon Cochran), James’ pious mom in Boca Raton who makes intrusive video calls, is set to have a grandbaby earlier than she dies and worries that every one Lou’s psychiatric medicines could also be getting in the best way.

James grew up spiritual, however misplaced his religion. (He too ponders whether or not a world with out ghosts is scarier than a world with them.) Lou assumes her husband is an atheist and doesn’t perceive when she discovers a Bible in the home. Mysterious issues preserve occurring — music abruptly blasts, doorways slam, the lights exit and the alarm system roars in the course of the evening. However “Paranormal Exercise” suggests — in a neo-Pinteresque vogue — that the unknowability of one other individual is extra terrifying than supernatural pyrotechnics.

In moments of battle, Lou withdraws whereas James feverishly tries to have interaction. It looks like she’s the one who’s hiding one thing, however James’ veneer of normality is just not fairly what it appears. They’re each maintaining secrets and techniques, however how precisely are their marital issues associated to the inexplicable bumps within the evening?

I didn’t perceive at first why James and Lou didn’t flee the home the second shadows appeared out of nowhere. I might have booked a resort room as quickly as Alexa began taking cues from some unholy presence. But it surely’s not the home that’s haunted a lot because the couple. Lou assumes she’s responsible. A shadow, presumably associated to the dying of her mother and father in a home fireplace when she was a woman, has been tormenting her for ages.

The difficulty in Chicago has adopted them to London. There appears to be no escape. Etheline Cotgrave (Kate Fry), a medium along with her personal podcast, pays an emergency go to to the home and detects not solely harmful occult exercise however marital warning indicators. When all hell breaks unfastened throughout her quasi-scientific seance, she acknowledges that the issue is past her capacities and that the home spells their doom.

At this level, I had solely my bronchial asthma inhaler to consolation me. How can a stage play be so scary? “2:22 – A Ghost Story,” a spooky drama that got here to the Ahmanson in 2022, wasn’t practically as efficient.

Credit score goes not solely to the author however to the manufacturing group. Barrett (greatest recognized for his immersive staging of Punchdrunk’s “ Sleep No Extra”) and his collaborators are masters of misdirection. Whereas audiences are targeted on one space of the stage, one thing furtive is occurring on one other.

The split-level home (delivered to life by scenic designer Fly Davis, who additionally did the costumes) offers the false safety of a complete view. But Anna Watson‘s ingenious lighting retains sure areas plunged in darkness, and that disturbing nursery door is often closed.

Gareth Fry’s sound design acknowledges that our ears are the gateways to our nervous techniques. Luke Halls’ video design lends the occult eruptions sufficient believable deniability to maintain the characters (and the viewers) stupidly hoping that the whole lot will one way or the other be all proper. Chris Fisher’s illusions will make you suppose you’re seeing double. You’re!

Amid all this otherworldly craziness, Holloway’s dialogue is extra naturalistic than most home dramas. And the actors are unerringly genuine. Heusinger’s James has a seductive earnestness that conceals some surprising character developments. However there are cracks within the facade.

Álvarez‘s Lou is even more durable to get a deal with on. Her reticence is self-protective, however she will be able to come off as chilly. The heat of the couple’s connection, nevertheless, is rarely unsure.

Cochran and Fry have showier supporting roles that enable them to play up the eccentricities of their characters. Fortunately, Cochran, a formidable realist who received an Obie for her efficiency in Tracy Letts’ “Bug,” isn’t consigned to video name appearances as James’ mom. I received’t give away how she turns up, however Cochran makes horror distressingly actual. As for Fry, when her Etheline loses her sangfroid, I used to be able to bolt.

Holloway’s character observations are faultless, however the decision of the story isn’t absolutely satisfying. Sure plot factors are overexplained; others are left to fall by the wayside. The play is extra spectacular mathematically than poetically. I’m a proponent of the Henry James college of ghost tales. In his novella “The Flip of the Screw,” the connection between the supernatural and the psychological is allowed to suggestively simmer.

Artists know that enigmas deliver us nearer to the reality. When that occurs in “Paranormal Exercise,” the worry is eye-opening.

In fact the very unusual incident involving my automobile alarm after I returned residence from the present was purely coincidental. I imply, simply because it’s by no means gone off earlier than for no motive after I parked exterior my door is not any motive to imagine that something peculiar was happening.