Monday , March 18 2024
'Strange Window: The Turn of the Screw' at BAM Harvey Theater. Left to right: Joe Solava as Miles, Moe Angelos as Mrs. Grose, Finley Tarr as Flora, Lucia Roderique as Governess. Photo credit: Ed Lefkowicz
'Strange Window: The Turn of the Screw' at BAM Harvey Theater. Left to right: Joe Solava as Miles, Moe Angelos as Mrs. Grose, Finley Tarr as Flora, Lucia Roderique as Governess. Photo credit: Ed Lefkowicz

Theater Review (NYC): ‘Strange Window: The Turn of the Screw’ at BAM

The Turn of the Screw, Henry James’s enigmatic ghost story, has spawned many adaptations and interpretations in the 120 years since its publication. The Builders Association, known for innovative and technologically advanced theater, has ginned up a production that relies heavily on artistically imagined projections to tell a time-shifting version of the classic novella.

Strange Window: The Turn of the Screw, written by James Gibbs and directed by Marianne Weems, begins with a promising bang of laughs. A hypermodern jet-setting couple hires a “supernanny” from a nanny app to take “full responsibility” – not just to care – for the two children they’ve inherited on the parents’ deaths.

The uncle is a lecture-circuit child psychologist who draws facile and dubious conclusions about children’s evolving perceptions of truth and falsehood. The aunt gives nonsensical TED Talk-type demos of facial micro-expressions, using close-up projections of subjects’ faces. These scenes pop up during, and comment unsubtly upon, the main action.

In this present-day setting, hired nanny Abigail (the excellent Lucia Roderique) worries about the unforgiving terms of her employment. These epitomize the downsides of today’s “gig economy” and suggest parallels with some of the terrible working conditions of bygone times.

But upon taking the job, Abigail dons a long skirt and begins narrating first-person passages from the novella, as the setting settles back into the 1890s. That smooth, unexpected early transition is the play’s most effective moment.

Subsequently the production settles, too – into a technological hyperactivity that’s paradoxically complacent. Austin Switser’s brilliant black-and-white projections are artistic and arresting. But rather than complementing the action, they take it over. With all the blinking lights, all the bodily/virtual multiplicities, all of Dan Dobson’s irritatingly assertive music, most of the action is weirdly static. Put simply, there’s a whole lot of telling and not much showing.

Roderique has a compelling presence and recites James’s text with sensitivity. We feel for Abigail, for a while. But, however enhanced by sound and video, her lines are just that – recitations. The ghostly visitations and other scenic elements provide moments sometimes effectively eerie or otherwise suggestive. But they are just that – moments.

Rather than accumulating storytelling momentum, the production’s traditional and modern elements weigh each other down. We’re left mostly with lugubrious sound and fury – an ultimately cold experience. It’s a classic case of the high-concept squeezing out the meat that makes theater real.

Strange Window: The Turn of the Screw, part of BAM’s Next Wave Festival, ends its four-day run on 15 December. For information and tickets visit the website.

About Jon Sobel

Jon Sobel is Publisher and Executive Editor of Blogcritics as well as lead editor of the Culture & Society section. As a writer he contributes most often to Music, where he covers classical music (old and new) and other genres, and Culture, where he reviews NYC theater. Through Oren Hope Marketing and Copywriting at http://www.orenhope.com/ you can hire him to write or edit whatever marketing or journalistic materials your heart desires. Jon also writes the blog Park Odyssey at http://parkodyssey.blogspot.com/ where he is on a mission to visit every park in New York City. He has also been a part-time working musician, including as lead singer, songwriter, and bass player for Whisperado.

Check Also

Steffanie Christian in 'Bark of Millions' photo by Julieta Cervantes

Theater Review (NYC): The Excruciatingly Brilliant ‘Bark of Millions,’ A Queer Rock-Opera Happening

Taylor Mac and Matt Ray's musical drag extravaganza honors millennia of queer history.