By JULES SHINKLE
BG Independent News
October’s reputation as a scary month is limited to the spooky – a kind of horror pacified by whimsy and play. It’s in November when the dread of a long winter starts to creep in, a sinking fear of what pains must be endured.
The Black Swamp Players, with their newest production “The Thin Place,” reminds us that it’s far from too late to enjoy a ghost story. For some, the real scary season may just be beginning.
“The Thin Place” is a 2019 play written by Lucas Hnath. Heith A. Diehl serves as this production’s director, his ninth time doing so at the Black Swamp Players. The show will run for two weekends on Nov. 7-9 and Nov. 14-16. Friday and Saturday’s shows begin at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday’s at 1:30 p.m.
The audience is first greeted by Hilda (Brandie Culbreath), whose relationship with her late grandmother garnered her an interest in the paranormal. As a kid, they had a guessing game where the two would try to listen to each other’s thoughts.
Hilda still pines to hear her grandmother’s words. She attends séances led by a charmingly British psychic, Linda (Rachel Hetrick). During a sitting, Linda makes contact with Hilda’s family beyond the veil. Hilda is incredibly moved by the display and enraptured by Linda’s abilities.
In the weeks following, the two strike up a relationship. Ordinarily timid and embarrassed to discuss matters of the occult, Hilda comes alive now that she’s found a fellow believer. Hilda needs to know badly – what happened at that séance? How did Linda channel her grandmother in that candlelit room?
After enough questioning, Linda confesses that what she does has little to do with spirits. She’s less of a medium and more of a charismatic performer who can intuit what people “need to hear” in order to make peace with their dead loved ones. Her talent is in the art of cold reading: a set of techniques used by those in her trade to trick people into believing the practitioner is a psychic.
Hilda is sent reeling as she struggles to square this revelation with what she believes to be true. Her dissonance is made manifest onstage and grips the theater. The more Hilda’s faith is confronted, the further into her world the audience is brought.
“The Thin Place” instills dread through its portrayal of doubt. It’s common enough to make an audience uncomfortable by pitting ideologies against each other. What makes this play an experience worth having is the induced fear that what’s seen with our very eyes may not be real.
This is a horror story that preys on both the skeptic and the believer – what if ghosts are real? What if they’re not?
All aspects of this production are executed artfully. Of special note are Culbreath’s performance, which is especially captivating, and Diehl’s lighting direction.
One of the joys of theater, be it campfire stories or a staged play, is that it asks an audience to suspend disbelief. To engage with the implausible sometimes makes things less ridiculous than they seemed initially. Or put simply, as Hilda does, to “try to keep an open mind about things.”
