Audio By Carbonatix
There’s nothing disturbing about ASU’s Lyric Opera Theatre production of The Turn of the Screw. The cast performs competently. The costumes and set work to good advantage. The orchestral score is wonderful to follow.
Honest, it’s nothing to get alarmed about. But that’s the scariest part–because this is supposed to be a ghost story.
Composed in 1954, The Turn of the Screw is Benjamin Britten’s operatic bow to the Henry James story of the same title. It’s a tragic yarn about an innocent schoolmarm-turned-governess who takes charge of two orphaned children for their footloose guardian uncle. Swayed by the bachelor uncle’s charm, she agrees never to bother him with news, hassles or emergencies concerning the kids or the comfortable English country estate she runs, aided by an aging housekeeper. Just take the money and handle everything, that’s the deal.
Sure enough, the deal sours. While the children, Miles and Flora, aren’t rotten on the surface, something’s wrong. Miles gets ejected from school for mysterious reasons; Flora enacts weird scenes with her doll and sneaks away to the woods. This strange behavior, and some glimpses of shadowy figures, convince the governess that evil spirits are lurking. According to the housekeeper, the restless souls must be the former governess and a sinful manservant, Peter Quint, who preyed on them all. Things finally get so out of control that the isolated young lady breaks her vow and writes to the uncle, forcing a contest for the children’s souls.
But are these ghosts, seen only by the governess and the children, real or imagined? And if they are illusions, whose fears–the governess’ or the children’s–brought them out? That paradox remains intact throughout The Turn of the Screw, leaving the audience to decide for itself.
Are we having goose bumps yet? Not in this show, as it turns out, but blame that on Britten and librettist Myfanwy Piper’s tale-skinning. The composer made beautiful, intricate music to a bare-bones plot stripped of its subtleties. While James’ novella spins fine strands of implied guilt connecting its characters, this stagework barely suggests them. Too little is hinted about the shy governess’s suspicious desire to fulfill her employer’s demands; not enough is revealed about Miles’ terrible predicament as the go-between for evil Peter Quint and the governess. The opera’s action points out these fragile connections but fails to make them forceful. On-stage, these characters vaporize.
In short, it’s not scary. Any ghost tale in any disguise should be either fun or frightening. Britten’s twist on The Turn of the Screw mistakes superstition for malevolence. Peter Quint makes some black-suited voodoo-doll entrances, but his horrible crimes aren’t described with any escalating sense of danger. Even fewer clues touch on the first governess Quint victimized; she’s just a banshee in leotards.
Britten’s grand intentions aside, Henry James’ hearthside chiller doesn’t fill the awesome scope of tragedy in the first place. In print, The Turn of the Screw is sly, ambiguous, teasing; there’s a flavor of shocking delight in the reading. Britten’s musical score reflects that sense superbly, but the terror of the story never makes it to the stage.
LOT’s actors turn in good to fair performances nevertheless. Gloria Borbridge lends a sturdy soprano to the lead role as the governess. Luke Denton, quite young, holds up well as Miles; his piano pantomime is well rehearsed and, though his thin voice is hard to understand, his important lines come through clear enough. Playing his sister Flora, Bethany Reeves offers an unsettling vision of a grown-up in little-girl dress that’s a plus in this macabre setting. The spirits, Jon Secrest and Michele Milford, are only adequate; but that’s more than can be said for this opera’s ghastly ghost parts. Beth Ann Bonnecroy’s voice is fine too, though her mechanical, old-lady mannerisms are too self-conscious.
Sylvia Debenport’s direction for The Turn of the Screw is sensible but similarly uneven. True, she creates some nervous moments with the children’s odd antics. But at times the action becomes silly. In one scene, feeling trapped in her circumstances, the governess seems to be doing a ridiculous cha-cha. The worst example arises when the two spirits swoop down and start waving their arms, spiderlike, to dance the children around; it goes on too long and looks like a dumb parody of a Sixties “happening.”
Yet Britten’s orchestral theme-and-variations score makes up for all else that’s missing. What this Turn of the Screw lacks in dramatic interest, the thirteen-piece orchestra’s superb performance redeems. Musical director Kenneth Seipp coaxes a properly monstrous mood of mounting terror from the pit. With fluttering flutes, groaning reed instruments, dissonant horns and thudding percussion, the ASU orchestra paints in the dark holes of these ambiguous proceedings.
If you’re spooked by the idea of a night at the opera, Lyric Opera Theatre’s current show will probably confirm your worst fears. But if Britten’s eerie orchestral music beckons you, give an ear to The Turn of the Screw.
The Turn of the Screw continues through Saturday in the ASU Music Theatre at Mill Avenue and Gammage Parkway in Tempe.
