Written by William Archibald

Directed by Nicholas Martin

In the Currier House Fishbowl

This weekend and next

WITH THE TURN of the Screw, Henry James wrote perhaps one of the most controversial novels of the past century, a novel where two conflicting interpretations are both valid. Is it a ghost story or a psychological drama? The Innocents, an adaptation of the story, is William Archibald's attempt at resolving the issue. Originally meant as a movie screenplay,The Innocents has landed in Currier House, adapted to the stage by director Nicholas Martin.

The Innocents turns the horror story/psychodrama novel into a drawing room drama. The action of the play centers on Miss Giddens (Ellen Harvey), a young governess for an unusual family in an old English country house, circa the late 1800's. The only residents of this isolated estate are two adolescent children, brother and sister, named Miles (Glen Whitney) and Flora (Kathy Urso), and their maid, Mrs. Grose (Carolyn Duffy).

Many are the untold secrets of the household. The last governess died mysteriously, and Miles' teacher did too. To complicate matters, she begins to hallucinate, seeing the images of the dead governess and teacher hovering around the children. She starts and screams for no reason, and all this within three days of arriving at the manor.

The burden of the acting falls on Harvey, who does an admirable job at keeping the audience wondering whether she is insane or victimized by the ghosts.

Sometimes the audience gets lost because they never get a chance to get into the governess' mind, her psychosis. Despite the intimacy of the set in the Currier Fishbowl, the audience sometimes feels distanced from the action. And the moments of shivery, horror-movie eerieness are too short to be cathartic.

Out of the supporting cast, Carolyn Duffy gives the most solid performance while Urso and Whitney are only adequate as Flora and Miles. One wonders why director Martin chose to have Harvey use a British accent, and the others use American accents. This inconsistency is disturbing and distracts the audience even during the play's better moments.

The Innocents saves the best for last, the latter part of the second act building up nicely to the surprising climax. But it's not enough, and the play is only OK compared to James' gripping novel.

Much of the blame lies in the choice of the play. James is a very cinematic, not theatrical, writer as Archibald realized. In a James novel, the descriptions of houses and landscape are so visually striking and can be as important as the interactions among the characters. Cinema is the perfect medium for bringing these descriptions to life. When theater attempts this, it is exceeding its boundaries. The cast and staff of Innocents trespass this boundary, perhaps innocently so, but the end result is only somewhat satisfying.