The Turn of the Screw at Flat Rock Playhouse

Henry James’s novella is the original iteration of all subsequent ghost stories involving a governess in an isolated mansion, one or more creepy children, and the (possible) appearance of malevolent spirits. For the stage adaptation at Flat Rock Playhouse, out of all those essential elements, the only one to appear on the stage is the governess.

In the spirit of other recent theater versions of well-known stories using a small number of actors playing all the parts, this Turn of the Screw has a cast of two: Stacie Bono, as the governess, and Danny Rothman, in all other roles, including the narrator, the housekeeper (Mrs. Grose), and the 10-year-old boy, Miles. The ghosts — who may or may not exist outside the minds of the characters — and Miles’ little sister, Flora, are unseen and known to the audience only through other characters’ mimed interactions with them or verbal descriptions.

This is something of a handicap for a child-focused ghost story, even one that has sparked more than a century of debate about what’s real and what just in the governess’s confused mind. Even the clever effects of sound (by Will Burns) and lighting (by CJ Barnwell) can’t really make up for the fact that the governess has no one to interact with except a fully grown man. An adult male is exactly whom James excluded from the main narrative of his story. It’s akin to doing a production of The Women in which most of the ladies are played by a guy.

Whether the show would work better with a cast of two women is an open question, since it still would leave the audience without the two children who so bedazzle the governess. Indeed, this telling of The Turn of the Screw is rather like watching the live production of an audiobook with two narrators, one of whom is miscast.

This is not to impune the talents of Mr. Rothman, who’s perfectly fine playing the narrator and the children’s heartless uncle (who lives far away in London), and whose Mrs. Grose has moments of wit and pathos. But he’s no 10-year-old boy, creepy or otherwise, and the absent children are a burden the show can’t really overcome. (When I learned it was a two-adult cast, and that Ms. Bono was a veteran of Avenue Q, I hoped briefly for puppets to play the kids. Now that could have been creepy. But no.)

Ms. Bono accomplishes as much as she can as the governess, and she’s onstage for virtually the full 90-minute running time of the show. She evokes fear and concern and affection for her charges, and she delivers long descriptions of things we can’t see with conviction and nuance. It’s a valiant effort.

The same can be said for director Lisa K. Bryant, who does her best with the staging to build suspense and produces a few nice jump-scares, and Bill Munoz, who designed the minimal set, consisting mostly of curtains, trunks, throne-like chairs and a platforms to give Bryant the chance to evoke landscapes and stairways.

In the end, though, there’s just too much missing that even the best-honed stagecraft can’t make up for. I might be accused of a lack of imagination — after all, the show is designed to evoke suspense in the minds of a susceptible audience — and I will grant that others may find the production more effective than I did. I’ve been impressed with Flat Rock Playhouse’s willingness to try new things and lesser-known plays under Bryant’s leadership as Producing Artistic Director, and this Turn is in keeping with that philosophy of expansion and outreach. To quote the verbose Henry James himself: “If we pretend to respect the artist at all we must allow him his freedom of choice, in the face, in particular cases, of innumerable presumptions that the choice will not fructify. Art derives a considerable part of its beneficial exercise from flying in the face of presumptions.” Whatever my assessment of this Turn of the Screw, I look forward to Flat Rock’s future flights in that direction.

The Turn of the Screw runs through November 2 at Flat Rock Playhouse. For tickets and details, visit flatrockplayhouse.org.

(Photos: Scott Treadway/Courtesy of Flat Rock Playhouse)

Stacie Bono in The Turn of the Screw at Flat Rock Playhouse.