Lovecraft Festival: Call of Cthulhu & Reanimator

Often described as a part octopus and part dragon creature with bat wings, H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu inspires existential dread, but would be difficult to render on-screen, even with an army of CGI animators. Frankly, Lovecraft’s work would have been perfect for the golden age of radio, but unfortunately he was busy dying in obscurity during the 1930’s. Championed by the likes of Stephen King, Brian Lumley, and Joyce Carol Oates, Lovecraft is now recognized as a Twentieth Century master of horror fiction, but his work remains devilishly difficult to film, making it an altogether fitting project for the Radiotheatre group. As part of their ongoing Lovecraft Festival, Radiotheatre’s two-man cast stands and delivers Call of Cthulhu and Reanimator old school radio style in a new production now running at the UNDER St. Marks Theater.

Director Dan Bianchi cleverly adapted what are arguably Lovecraft’s two signature novellas into two-handers for Eric Whitten and Frank Zilinyi, who play off each other rather nicely. The first, Call, lends itself particularly readily to this approach, because there is a lot of telling in Lovecraft’s tale. Indeed, the first section is entirely flashbacks, as John Raymond Legrasse of the New Orleans Police Department seeks some background information from an anthropology professor regarding the Cthulhu worshipping voodoo cult he recently busted. Of course, the academic is only too familiar with Cthulhu, who has been driving the psychically sensitive mad with bizarre dream imagery. When Call’s narrative finally starts advancing forward, Legrasse and the academic set out to find the ancient entity’s lair guided by the professor’s own dreams. Unfortunately, they find it.

Though it is still cool and creepy, Reanimator does not work quite as well in this format, perhaps since it was originally written as a serial novella, there is just so much accursed plot. Also, many will be familiar with the good Dr. Herbert West from Stuart Gordon’s loose film adaptation of Reanimator, which made a cult superstar of Jeffrey Combs among the Cheetos-smelling fanboy set, so some may compare and contrast accordingly.

In both radio-plays, Whitten takes on the role of the twitchy man of science, while Zilinyi plays his man-of-action partner. Yet, the latter are hardly boring characters. In fact, Zilinyi is especially unsettling in Reanimator as West’s loyal narrator-colleague, who might have harbored a latent homosexual attraction to the mad doctor and is most surely insane (whether that was a result of their misadventures or a preexisting condition is open to interpretation).

Though Lovecraft hewed to decidedly leftwing economic positions, he was considered distinctly conservative in his critique of social decay. Throughout his canon, society is in irreversible moral decline while evil is always an ancient, cosmic, and tangible presence. Bianchi’s take on Call directly addresses these archetypal themes in a manner faithful to Lovecraft’s vision. His original music and sound effects further heighten the mood of primordial horror, as does the thick stage smoke (asthmatics should probably be warned beforehand). Well conceived and executed, the latest installment of Lovecraft Fest is highly entertaining genre theater that is respectful but not slavish to its source material. Recommended beyond Lovecraft enthusiasts to general audiences, the 2nd Lovecraft Festival runs through July 31st at the UNDER St. Marks.

(Photo: Dan Bianchi)

On-Stage: St. Nicholas

One could say that the blood-sucking parasite of Conor McPherson’s vampire play is actually a theater critic, but that would be too easy. Drama criticism, at least as practiced in Dublin, certainly gets a thorough skewering. In fact, the unnamed narrator’s lack of critical integrity is the one thing we can be sure of amidst the macabre blarney of McPherson’s one-man vampire play St. Nicholas, recently revived at the WorkShop Theater by the Theatre of the Expendable.

Through an extended monologue, Ireland’s hardest drinking drama critic explains to the audience how through an unfortunate series of events he became the indentured familiar of a den of vampires. It all started with a mediocre production of Salome. In a rare act of critical fairness, he gave it the so-so review it deserved. However, that was not what he told the cast and crew at the after party. Ordinarily, he would not worry about their dashed spirits when they discovered the true tenor of his review, but the middle-aged curmudgeon developed a fast fixation on a beautiful young actress in the production.

In a monumentally bad decision, our increasingly obsessed narrator followed the production to London after their Dublin run closes early (thanks in no small part to his own write-up). Much alcohol is consumed during a confrontation that leaves the skunk-drunk narrator vulnerable to the mental domination of an alpha male vampire. That is, if we chose to believe him. While his story is fantastic, in all fairness, he is hardly self-surviving in its telling, casting himself in a consistently unflattering light.

Even as a cautionary tale told in retrospect, St. Nicholas relies more on suggestion than accounts of actual blood. Yet, McPherson’s vampires are still described in highly sexualized terms, not unlike those currently dominating pre-teen novels and cinema multiplexes. It is also quite amusing at times, particularly during its scathing depiction of the state of theater criticism in Dublin.

Obviously, as a dramatic monologue, St. Nicholas largely depends on the ability of its lead to serve as a forceful raconteur. Fortunately, Darrell James brings the cynical critic (surely this is not a redundancy) to vivid life, showing a strong affinity for the cadences (both the comedic and the eerie) of McPherson’s language. A play well served by an intimate space like the WorkShop, director Jesse Edward Rosbrow trusts the simple elements of the play—just the strange narrator, a chair, and the audience. Yet, with the help of the subtly evocative lighting (designed by Ryan Metzler), James completely draws the audience into to this tale of worldly humiliation and supernatural mystery.

Coming relatively hard on the heels of the release of McPherson’s justly acclaimed supernatural film The Eclipse, the timing should be right for revivals of his work and St. Nicholas seems like an economical choice. Indeed, Expendable’s production is quite entertaining and should well satisfy theater patrons who enjoy highly literate supernatural fare. Now officially open, it runs at the WorkShop through July 3rd.

(Photo: Dorian Nisinson)