Dare to Scare: The Art of Theatrical Frights

Time to risk injury carving faces in pumpkins and don ridiculous outfits replete with buckets of fake blood; Halloween is here once again. Those too old to trick-or-treat and visit haunted houses might seek their Halloween thrills elsewhere and one place to satisfy their lust for horror is the stage. 


Theatreland has plenty on offer for those looking for a few frights, with two spooky plays - the long-running Woman in Black and the Duke of York's Ghost Stories - currently in residence in the West End. Ghost Stories even put on a special midnight Halloween performance last night for those who had not already had their fill of terror. But what exactly does it take to give audience members the chills?


For me it is the unseen which is the most powerful. Plays can never compete with the CGI and special effects available to film and too much blood on stage can be frankly embarrassing. Traditionally it is ghost stories that have the most success, perhaps aided by tales of haunted West End theatres. The Woman in Black, which this summer celebrated 21 years in the Fortune Theatre, is an excellent example of how successful a ghost story brought to stage can be.


I saw The Woman in Black several years ago as a GCSE Drama student and I was dubious to say the least. Could a play really be that scary? In the wake of scores of horror movies, today's youth don't scare very easily and I refused to see how a stage play, without the aid of the special effects at the disposal of film-makers, could terrify an audience. As others who have seen the play will not be surprised to hear, I left the theatre with a very different opinion.


The beauty of this play is that it draws on the reserves of imagination, always showing just enough but not too much. Without giving anything away, one of the most effective elements of the production is its use of sound effects; the concept is simple but the result is terrifying. Although I thought that the screams of some of my fellow audience members were a bit much (you might have worked out by now that bad audience behaviour is one of my pet hates) I was genuinely spooked and vividly remember waking up in the middle of the night after seeing it in a fit of terror. Well, that might be a slight exaggeration, but I was scared.


It is those plays that can touch on our deepest psychological fears that are more successful than those that merely attempt to shock. An example of truly disturbing theatre is Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman, an excellent student production of which I recently saw and reviewed. Very little is actually depicted on stage, but as we hear Katurian telling his twisted stories our imaginations do all the work - this is the genius of McDonagh's writing.


Of course there are also plays that do not purport to belong to the horror genre but scare nonetheless. I found the Lyric Hammersmith's Punk Rock utterly terrifying at moments, perhaps because the events, rather than being a far-fetched ghost story or thriller, were chillingly believable. I am also someone who jumps very easily, so anything with a gunshot is sure to make me leap out of my seat in shock. My heart was even thumping in fear for about five minutes after the climax of Blood Brothers.


I am far from having a formula for scaring audiences, but my general conclusion is that less is usually more. If anyone has any more suggestions of fright-inducing plays or perhaps if any readers braved last night's performance of Ghost Stories, please leave a comment.


Happy Halloween!