By John Quinn
Alysia Kolascz and Pete Podolski in "Nightmare Box" at Planet Ant Theatre. Photo: Planet Ant.
As the calendar draws closer to the Great Pagan Feast, the Celtic blood pulses a little faster in my veins. I pray, like the Cornish:
{ITAL From goulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night
Good Lord, deliver us!}
In the spirit of Halloween, Planet Ant is serving up a sample of the twisted imaginations of some of our local artists in "Nightmare Box," an evening of original stories. There aren't ghosts and ghouls to give us shivers but there's enough "weird" to chill the spine.
The production's structure is interesting. "The Nightmare Box," written by Dave Davies and show director Shawn Handlon, is the longest tale. Its scenes are broken up by unrelated vignettes that hang like shrunken heads from the main tree. Herein we learn of the demon Archamendon, imprisoned for two thousand years in a box buried under a flow of lava. "Someone" has retrieved the box and "someone" is attempting to open it. Is this the End of Time? Can we be saved by an intrepid Guardian?
"The Nightmare Box" plays a little like the "Flash Gordon" style serials, which, I am not afraid to admit, were still playing on Saturday morning TV when I was a kid. Not that Mom would have let us watch anything as gruesome as this. Just when the action is heating up, though, we must wait with bated breath as another creepy tale is told. Fortunately, we don't have to "tune in next week," as the interludes are short and to the point.
Of special note are two scenes that can loosely share the theme of "love gone bad," Margaret Edwartowski's "Reunion" and Marke Sobolewski's "Good Companion." Both explore themes worthy of Edgar Allen Poe, not to mention introducing (ahem) a "tell-tale heart."
There are some hurdles to overcome. Five nimble actors – Michael Carnow, Jill Dion, Keith Kalinowski, Alysia Kolascz and Pete Podolski – play multiple parts. Because we see the same faces on different characters, it's difficult to catch what we're seeing. We don't have a good sense of time or place, and it takes a while to come up to speed on plot. The sparse, multi-purpose set is put to efficient use, but again, can't help establish place. As individual as the mini-plays are, they all seem to blur together.
The company's commitment to an original production by home-grown talent is a boost to the Metro arts scene and provides them a unique and satisfying showcase. "Nightmare Box" as a Halloween thriller, though, is a little like a fangless vampire. It lacks "bite."
REVIEW:
'The Nightmare Box'
Planet Ant Theatre, 2357 Caniff St., Hamtramck. Friday-Saturday through Nov. 6, with additional performances Oct. 21 & 26. $20. 313-365-4948. http://www.planetant.com
