No Mystery in Laguna’s ‘Woman in Black’

In “The Woman in Black,� a ghost story so roots itself in the mind of the listener that its horrors regenerate themselves and happen anew.

The show itself, however, has no such effect. Indeed, you may well have forgotten it by the time you’re outside, fishing for your car keys.

Incredibly, this play has been running for 10 years on the West End, making it London’s second-longest-running show, after Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap.� Whatever its appeal there, though, it is not recaptured in the Southern California premiere at Laguna Playhouse’s Moulton Theater, where vivid design work and fine acting can do nothing to salvage artistic director Andrew Barnicle’s slack direction of a tepid script.

The disappointment is doubly so since this project was an 11th-hour replacement for a hot play out of New York, “As Bees in Honey Drown,� which was withdrawn due to “artistic complications.� (Playhouse Executive Director Richard Stein declined to elaborate but said the script is being pursued for next season.)

“The Woman in Black� began life as a novel by Susan Hill, which Stephen Mallatratt adapted for the stage. The story focuses on a London lawyer who, as a younger man, was sent to settle some business at a remote mansion on a fog-shrouded and treacherous marsh. The horror that he encountered there still haunts him.

The adaptation’s conceit is that the lawyer, in 1925, has hired an actor to coach him in the delivery of this story. The lawyer feels that by sharing his tale with family and friends, he will somehow exorcise it.

The men meet for rehearsals in a London theater, which set designer Lisa Hashimoto has wonderfully evoked by erecting an elegant but time-scarred proscenium of burnished wood and decorated panels. From furnishings scattered around the stage, the lawyer and his coach simulate a carriage, a train car, a graveyard and more. Paulie Jenkins’ creepy lighting and David Edwards’ sound design complete these illusions, which are meant to pull viewers ever deeper into the events being retold.

As the lawyer, Tom Shelton is amusingly stiff in the opening minutes, as Morgan Rusler’s actor--overly proud of listening to his own mellifluous voice--coaches the lawyer’s delivery. For more effective telling of the story, the frustrated actor suggests that he take over the lawyer’s identity, while the lawyer plays all the other characters. In these supporting roles, Shelton’s lawyer suddenly gets the hang of acting and fluidly metamorphoses between parts by adopting limps, sniffles and accents.

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The woman in black, as you have surely guessed by now, is the figure at the heart of the lawyer’s haunting memory. She appears--silent and veiled--a few times during the story’s telling. (Gail Godown handles this glorified walk-on.) No sense of dread builds in Barnicle’s direction, however, and what little momentum there is dissipates in the too-long pauses between scenes. (The intermission, which should have been cut, kills the mood entirely.)

The worst problem, though, lies in the script, which makes its last-minute shocker perfectly obvious in the first act. This show isn’t spine-tingling, it’s spineless.

* “The Woman in Black,� Laguna Playhouse’s Moulton Theater, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. 8 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday. Ends March 21. $31-$38. (949) 497-2787. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

Tom Shelton: Mr. Kipps, then actor

Morgan Rusler: Actor, then Mr. Kipps

Gail Godown: The Woman

A Laguna Playhouse production. Adapted by Stephen Mallatratt from Susan Hill’s novel. Directed by Andrew Barnicle. Set: Lisa Hashimoto. Costumes: Dwight Richard Odle. Lights: Paulie Jenkins. Sound: David Edwards. Stage manager: Nancy Staiger.