For a self-professed ghost story, The Woman in Black starts with something unexpected: jokes. For nearly the first 10 minutes, the play is legitimately funny and lighthearted, with little to suggest that it will ever become spooky or suspenseful, let alone haunting. But rest assured, The Woman in Black — written by Stephen Mallatratt based on the 1983 book by Susan Hill — does eventually become ghostly, and the Keegan Theatre’s “back by popular demand” production, now playing through November 17, is thoroughly haunting in its best moments, even if it struggles to ascend beyond its main trick of spine-tingling suspense. ‘The Woman in Black’ show art courtesy of the Keegan Theatre. Those first 10 minutes of The Woman in Black, directed here by Josh Sticklin, establish the play’s central conceit: Arthur Kipps, an older gentleman played by Robert Leembruggen, has enlisted the help of a young theatermaker to bring to life a harrowing encounter with a ghost he experienced when he was a young solicitor. The unnamed performer, played by Noah Mutterperl, eventually decides to play the young Kipps himself, while the elder Kipps takes on all the various other roles in the show. The play, then, is structured around this metanarrative, jumping back and forth between the present, in which the actor and the elder Kipps talk about the play they will create, and the past, in which the play is actually created, and we see the young Kipps make his way to the extremely isolated Eel Marsh House to settle the estate of a reclusive woman whose very name appears to turn people away. This is, of course, a ghost story, so Kipps’ trip naturally leads to a series of hauntings — told through a series of set pieces — that leave him increasingly worse for wear. Each of these set pieces feels genuinely spooky as the mood shifts and tension fills the air, with increasing effect. There are few jump scares, but there are long periods when you wait with bated breath for one that may or may not come. The production design carries much of the weight in these set pieces, not from any fault of Leembruggen or Mutterperl — both handle what can be verbose dialogue and depict fear well — but because the “story” part of this ghost story is mostly just exposition, while the “ghost” sections are where the play really shines. And it is the design that is so effective at creating a hair-raising atmosphere in this intimate theater. Brandon Cook’s soundscapes are deep and layered, complete with an undercurrent of low tones that makes everything feel a little off balance. Sage Green’s lighting design is equally eerie, with dramatic light beams and incredibly dark shadows that anything could pop out of. And Sticklin’s scenic design, together with Paris Francesca’s costuming, blends a few turn-of-the-century eras to create The Woman in Black’s olden aesthetic. Still, while the spectral set pieces are effectively spooky, they are also so self-contained that the context of the rest of the story becomes insignificant. That is particularly true of the titular Woman. Kipps spends much of his time at Eel Marsh investigating who she is and why she is now haunting the house, and yet her origin is a trivial matter — she could be anybody haunting the house for any reason and it would not make this play any more or less spine-tingling. Devoid of context, the distinct hauntings run the risk of blending together, a problem that Sticklin attempts to overcome by giving each a unique trick (no spoilers, but many are quite clever). It works to an extent, but at the same time it reinforces the notion that The Woman in Black is more spectacle than story. To be sure, the metanarrative of elder Kipps is still important to this play’s function. For one, each time the two speak of the play they are making, it pulls both them and the audience out of the story for a moment, creating much-needed breaks in the tension as the lights literally come up and you no longer need to worry, at least briefly, about what is in the shadows. Perhaps more important, though, this metanarrative is also a not-so-subtle acknowledgment that everything seen in this theater is just that: theater. The entire play falls apart if the logical part of our brains remembers that this is all fake, that the tense actors are acting tense, the eerie lighting is pre-designed, and the chilling soundscapes are recorded and edited. The breaks in the story get ahead of logic by acknowledging it up front and then pulling you back in. After all, ghost stories work because they play to the part of the brain that doesn’t deal in reason. Instead, they pick at fear and imagination. The Woman in Black at Keegan Theatre does that remarkably well. Running Time: 90 minutes with no intermission. The Woman in Black plays through November 17, 2024, at the Keegan Theatre, 1742 Church Street NW, Washington, DC. Purchase tickets ($54; $44 for students and seniors) online, by email ([email protected]), by calling the box office at (202) 265-3767, or in person at the Keegan Theatre Box Office, which opens on the day of the show one hour before the performance. COVID Safety: Masks are optional but encouraged. Keegan’s Health and Safety policies are here. The Woman in Black By Stephen Mallatratt Based on the novel by Susan Hill Directed by Josh Sticklin