A tough time getting at the truth

By Mary Carole McCauley | sun theater critic

January 23, 2008

As I watched Everyman Theatre's production of The Turn of the Screw, I couldn't help thinking about the infamous McMartin Preschool case and the way that the most well-intentioned, pure-hearted adults can instill false - and immensely damaging - memories into susceptible children.

The McMartin case involved the six-year prosecution of the proprietors of a California day-care center in the 1980s, and focused on allegations of Satanic rituals and the sexual abuse of young children. No convictions were obtained, and one of the alleged victims later recanted his testimony.

In the 109 years since Henry James first published his creepy novella The Turn of the Screw, our anxiety about childhood sexuality has not diminished one whit. And the most disturbing aspect of the one fictional and one real-life example is that there's no way of knowing for certain what happened.

Although Everyman's production, ably directed by Donald Hicken, does what it can to maintain the mystery, Jeffrey Hatcher's stage adaptation unfortunately skews that delicate balance.

The story's potential to disturb and provoke lies in its ambiguity. James' novella is almost evenly poised between two possibilities. Every time the reader comes to a conclusion, a new piece of evidence is inserted that bolsters the opposite possibility.

Were Miles and Flora, the two English children whom James created, first molested by their caregivers, and later possessed by their ghosts from beyond the grave? Or was it all just a figment of the hyperactive imagination of their lovestruck, 20-year-old governess, who may be going mad?

The play's writing suffers from over-explicitness. For instance, one of the story's chief mysteries surrounds young Miles' expulsion from school. James provides just three word of explanation: "I said things."

What things, exactly? Did Miles solicit other boys or make threats? Or was he simply a little strange? Is Miles a young demon, or was he being stigmatized for being different?

In the novella, we never know.

In the play, Hatcher fills in the blanks. He leaves no doubt that Flora and Miles had been abused, and that the boy acted out his trauma at school, which robs the plot of some tension. It's never the things we look at directly that most terrify us, but the things we glimpse only in shadow.

The script isn't all bad. One of Hatcher's better innovations was casting the play with only two actors: the governess (played by Megan Anderson) and everyone else (played by Bruce Nelson.)

Anderson is a marvelous young actress, with a voice like crushed gravel and a headlong intensity.

Hers is a fervent performance, and it ratchets up the stakes: Perhaps the governess really is going bonkers, or perhaps she only seems that way because she's fighting for the children's very souls.

Nelson has the more difficult job, because he transforms from the aloof uncle who hires the governess to a middle-aged housekeeper, and to a 10-year-old boy. Each new shift causes the audience to shift gears mentally, testing our capacity to suspend disbelief.

But Nelson carries off the transformations with panache. He doesn't even bother to change his voice.

James Fouchard's impressionistic, black and silver set includes overlapping, partially transparent screens behind which people can pop out and disappear, while Colin Bills' lighting keeps the audience literally in the dark.

It's all a reminder of how ethereal and hard to grasp the truth can be, and how even the people most intimately involved in a situation might not know what really happened once the door is shut and the lights go out.

mary.mccauley@baltsun.com