4

	Zoo Southside (venue website) Theatre 3-12, 14-27 Aug, 12:45pm-1:35pm Reviewed by Mathilda Gregory
Parents or guardians should consider the content of this show if children are attending.

HookHitch Theatre have put together a wonderful version of the famously chilling Henry James tale. The masterstroke in this adaptation is that the story’s sinister children are portrayed by puppets. This makes the subtext explicit in a very effective way; as the children act strangely, the hints that they are in fact possessed by dead servants Peter Quint and Miss Jessel feel stronger than ever. And the effect is cemented by the actors playing the ghostly Quint and Jessel, who also provide the voices for the puppet children.

The Turn of the Screw has many possible interpretations. Ghostly possession is just one; another is that the children are disturbed because of sexual abuse, yet another is that the governess is going crazy – imagining things due to her own loneliness and sexual repression. The neat thing here is that, although the puppets do a lot to suggest one interpretation of events, others still sit as uneasily as ever within the piece, as at times different characters manipulate the children.

The puppets – created by producer/performer Casey Jay Andrews – are gorgeous, their eerie whiteness adding to the Gothic mood. Laura Trundle’s stand-out performance as The Governess deserves special mention, as does the production design and ensemble direction. Extraordinary use is made of simple set items like suitcases and an old wheelchair.

Things get a little muddled towards the end, and some of the more sinister doings of Miles, the little boy who may or may not be possessed by Quint are glossed over rather quickly. At one point, this defuses the tension over the whereabouts of Miles’s sister Flora before it had even really been built. But overall, this a wholly satisfying and thoughtful adaptation of one of the greatest ghost stories ever written.