On its surface, Henry James’s 1898 novella, “The Turn of the Screw,” is a good, spooky ghost story.
But simmering underneath are layers of questions perhaps even more frightening than a haunted house with creaky floorboards and ephemeral apparitions that float down hallways.
Set in the Gilded Age, James wrote the novella in the 1890s but set it in the 1870s. That period, marked by rapid economic growth and industrialization, political corruption, women’s suffrage and scientific and technological inventions and improvements, is important in understanding the novel, says Kristin Skye Hoffmann, director of Theatreworks’ upcoming production of Jeffrey Hatcher’s 1996 adaptation of the classic novella. “The Turn of the Screw” runs through April 6 atEnt Center for the Arts 6.
“It’s the idea that we have dipped something horrible in something beautiful,” Hoffmann said. “And exteriors are more important than what’s going on beneath. That’s why he wrote this. It’s a statement on what we’re allowed to say, what women and children can say, and how those things we suppress manifest.”
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The ghost story begins when a governess accepts a job caring for two recently orphaned children in an isolated English manor. She replaces the children’s former governess, who died by suicide. When she begins to see the ghosts of the dead governess and a valet whose death was suspicious, watchers must question if the ghosts are real or a product of her imagination.
In Hatcher’s two-person adaptation, one actor stars as The Woman. Opposite her is an actor who plays four characters: a narrator, elderly housekeeper, 10-year old boy and the uncle who owns the property. He’s also responsible for creating the sounds in the show, including bird song, ghosts and creaking floorboards.
“The more we dig in, the more we realize it’s reflective of trauma cycles,” Hoffmann said. “It’s what happens when we don’t talk about it. Every character in the play has had some sort of trauma. We don’t hear in detail, but we can tell it happens. It makes sense about the hauntings or how do hauntings happen.”
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Bradley Allan Zarr stars opposite Annie Barbour in the Theatreworks production. After his initial read-through of the script, he was left with one question: What haunts you? Not necessarily an actual ghostly presence in your house, but maybe the ghost of an ex-beloved or some other circumstance that has left you traumatized.
“What is that thing that makes you go a little insane?” Zarr said. “Maybe not everyone has that, but I do think quite a lot of us do. How does it manifest in your life? How do you cope with that haunting? These things that are not an actual physical presence in our life but hold a lot of energy in our minds and our hearts.”
James’ novel is one that keeps serving as a source of inspiration for creative projects, including the 2020 Netflix miniseries “The Haunting of Bly Manor”; the 1954 opera; the young adult novels “The Turning” by Francine Prose and “Tighter” by Adele Griffin; and New York Times bestselling author Ruth Ware’s 2019 novel, “The Turn of the Key.”
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It continues to resonate because our world has not bypassed trauma, and women still aren’t allowed to speak their minds freely without repercussions, Hoffmann says.
“Wherever there’s religion and thoughts of punishment for sins, there are horror movies,” she said. “Wherever there is a world of shame and suppression, there are always going to be stories about the torture we put ourselves through and the scary things our minds can do and how much power there is in what we believe is real, that is born of these things.”
Contact the writer: 636-0270
Contact the writer: 636-0270
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