Viking Youth News & Events

This past weekend I spent one of the more enjoyable Saturday night’s I’ve had in Chicago in sometime at our city’s resident “Horror Theatre” experts newest production, an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Dreams in the Witch House”.

“The Dreams in the Witch House” is a short story originally published in Weird Tales 75 years ago apparently without Lovecraft’s consent. Until recently Witch House has been considered a throw away in the precocious lexicon of the 20th century’s most influential horror writer, but in recent years it’s gained some traction with critics and has seen a number of adaptations both to the stage and to the screen. Two of those adaptations include a recent retelling for the Masters of Horror series:

and a more liberal remix that happened to be one of Borris Karloff’s final films. Oddly enough “Curse of the Crimson Alter” happens to be an early imprint upon me, possibly the initial psychological push that interested my 4-year-old self to be both terrified and mesmerized by beautiful woman performing strange rituals in animal masks for the rest of my days:

“Witch House” tells the story of a young mathematics genius with a mysterious past, Walter Gilman, taking to school at the infamous Miskatonic University. Before our fated hero can even unpack his bags he’s beset by terrible omens, rat faced humans, odd foreigners, and troubling dreams encouraging geometry as a means to a rather inhabited fourth dimension. By the end of the show we’ve been treated to spirit possession, incest, baby pies, glowing pentagrams, an awesome chameo from an Old One, plenty of madness and witchery and enough murder to keep that old impotent cunt Dick Cheney horny for a week. In short, it’s a delicious trollop through the highest roads of horrors greatest riffs.

One of the truly great joys of Chicago’s boutique theatre scene is to witness how these small cadres of thespian devotees manage their often times lofty aspirations against, at times, rather troubling limitations. To this, “Witch House” is no exception. Charlie Athanas’ set design was simple and spacious allowing the story to unpack itself without clutter, offering clever reveals to punch up the story’s EVUHL! fastidiously. Athanas’s sets hung well with Paul Foster’s light design together reaching perhaps their most noticable success during Walter Gilman’s journeys into the 4th dimension.

The performances were great as well. J. David Moeller was fantastic in his multiple roles holding court with not only the best face for Lovecraft, but also the finest delivery. Chris Hainsworth seemed to pull his performance right from ‘Fire Walk With Me’ invoking Sheriff Cable with a razor timing that was a complete joy to watch. And Brian Amidei hit a couple great marks with both his short stint as Witch House super Dombrowski and also as the rather burdened priest. Satellite Viking Sean Bolger arced well between a John Hustonesque begrudged cheif of police and a effete librarian.

But what sets Wildclaw apart from other theatre groups is that they aren’t just pursuing art by way of theatre, they’re pursuing theatre by way of Horror. And this love of the wicked permeates every aspect of the show; from the obvious selection of the story, to the wonderful (and multiple) gory ejaculates, to the welcome homage to pie and David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks”. Even Adam Kozlowski’s sound design seemed to be a love letter to all that is horrorful as if it was plucked line for line from the soundtrack of WGN’s old Sunday night horror mainstay “Tales from the Dark Side”.

If you’ve you’re not totally deplete of taste or class and happen to enjoy yourself a dark yarn now and then, you’d be fool to miss the WildClaw Theatre’s production of “The Dreams in the Witch House” playing Thursday through Sunday from now until December 21st at the Atheneum Theatre in Chicago.