The Bone House will scare you out of your skin

Posted on October 27, 2018 By Mike Ross Entertainment, Front Slider, Theatre

In the dying days of Vaudeville, I attended a traveling production that scared the living daylights out of me – it lingers even now some 70 years later. A virtuoso storyteller told us of the terrors of the night that inhabit our world. As he talked, we realized that they were drawing near. Suddenly, the house went black – and indeed (through some simple theatrical devices) they were right beside us.

Much later, only some 20 year ago, Edmonton magician (and repository of all things theatrical) Ron Pearson, Edmonton writer Marty Chan and director Ben Henderson conspired to recreate that long-ago illusion. The terrifying result was titled The Bone House and – look out! – through the efforts of Edmonton’s Murball Productions, this unsettling creation is back, just in time for Halloween. The Bone House plays at the Varscona Hotel until Oct. 31.

Consider if you will: Eugene Crowley (Lew Wetherell, right), a bear of a man who speaks with a musical, slightly Southern American accent, and calls himself a “mind hunter.” He tells us he has spent a lifetime studying serial killers and introduces us to a rogue’s gallery of deranged butchers: Paul Bernardo, John Wayne Gacy and others. There’s even a slide show to go with it. His particular obsession is known as “The Midnight Cowboy.” No one has seen the killer’s face – in fact many people maintain he is merely an urban legend. Crowley is assisted by a (mostly) wordless but creepy dude named Jacob (Jason Hardwick) who often just stands there and stares at the audience with unsettling focus.

The implacable investigator has been stalking The Midnight Cowboy for 19 years but has problems getting people to believe him. As the evening progresses, the sometimes grisly tale (we are talking of serial killers here) begins to get more personal. Anecdotes and stories spill out and you can feel the tension in the room increasing. Crowley creates a growing sense of menace as he probes deeply – asking how the killer might look. Is he just like us? He might be anyone. He could be the person sitting next to you.

He invites a frightened witness named Gabrielle (Nicole Grainger) into the room. “Look at her,” he tells us. “She’s a shell of the vibrant girl she used to be.” He hypnotizes her, and in an acting tour-de-force, Grainger grits out the growing terror of a girl alone on an empty street, late at night. She is not alone for long.

We can’t go much farther into this review without letting the monster out of the closet. Chan proves to be a master at slowly turning up the chill to levels measurable only on the Richter Scale. Wetherell is indeed a spellbinder as he starts us off with what seems to be an academic lecture, and then skillfully evokes shades of fascination, alarm, dread and then terror leading to a conclusion that is unexpected and horrifying. And you are an unwilling part of it.

Crowley asks us three times if we want to leave. If we don’t – later, there is no escape.

You can practically feel the glee that horrormeister-director Jennifer Krezlewicz had in pulling the ropes and unleashing the Frankensteinian creative theatrical spark into Chan’s words.

By my account, this is the third production of the show in Edmonton since its debut at the Fringe. It’s been mounted elsewhere, most recently at the Edinburgh Festival. There have been some modern additions, but judging from this assured production, The Bone House had lost none of its ability to haunt your dreams. Don’t go alone.