Melissa James and Patrick Heusinger in Paranormal Activity.Johan Persson/Supplied
- Title: Paranormal Activity
- Written by: Levi Holloway
- Performed by: Patrick Heusinger, Melissa James, Jackie Morrison, Pippa Winslow, Aaron Dart, Cheyenne Dasri
- Director: Felix Barrett
- Company: Mirvish Productions
- Venue: CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre
- City: Toronto
- Year: Runs until July 5
Critic’s Pick
Consider the grump. The grump does not often attend the theatre by choice – but when they do find themselves at a live performance, they grouse. “I know how they did that,” they mutter as a magic trick delights the rest of the crowd. “He’s flat,” they grumble as the leading man bares his soul through song.
Paranormal Activity, now playing in a hair-raising production at the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre in Toronto, is not entirely grump-proof. Levi Holloway’s script is just as cheesy as the screenplays it’s based on; a few faux-American accents veer toward Welsh during moments of high drama; Gareth Fry’s sound design is close to ear-splitting during the most climactic sequences in the play.
But the stagecraft on display in Paranormal Activity is just this side of shocking. Holloway’s story unfolds in a cozy British home, rendered for the stage in all its two-storey glory by set and costume designer Fly Davis. On first glance, the house is a picture of normalcy: Its toilet flushes, its sinks run with real water. Davis’s functional set includes dozens of lights, switches and tchotchkes that almost make the space feel real.
But this is theatre, and, more to the point, it’s Paranormal Activity, so of course the cottage is spring-loaded with some surprises. Illusionist Chris Fisher, who also created the effects for Broadway and the West End’s Stranger Things: The First Shadow, has crafted tricks so elaborate that I’m hardly sure how some of them are real. In Fisher’s world, people disappear into thin air; TVs flicker and malfunction as if haunted by ghosts.
But much like Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (on which Fisher has also worked), the illusions are executed so seamlessly that there’s no use looking for fishing lines or clunky trapdoors when the phantoms come out to play. Even the crankiest of audience members ought to be impressed: Paranormal Activity is theatre sorcery at the highest level, as much an exercise in alchemy as in drama.
Holloway’s script is less successful than the special effects it asks of its design team. But tonally, it’s perfectly calibrated to the tropes of its namesake movie franchise.
When we meet Lou (Melissa James) and Jimmy (Patrick Heusinger), they’ve just moved to England for Jimmy’s job. As much as they’re excited to start the next chapter of their marriage, they’re running from something, too – early in the play, we’re informed that something bad (or perhaps multiple somethings bad) happened back home in Chicago. Lou, in particular, seems to be struggling – is she depressed? Narcoleptic? Why is she “losing time,” as she calls her temporary blackouts?
The answer’s about as horrifying – and far-fetched – as you’d guess. Meanwhile, it becomes clear that Jimmy’s mom (Pippa Winslow) might not be as supportive of the young couple as she lets on; even worse, metaphysical podcaster Etheline Cotgrave (Jackie Morrison) might not have the chops to cleanse the couple of their demons.
Director Felix Barrett leans into the campy, pseudo-religious veneer of the Paranormal Activity films with an eye toward pacing: Unlike most horror movies, the franchise’s stage treatment doesn’t frontload its jump scares, leaving a limp second act to tie up the story. Rather, the scares are scattered evenly throughout the material – there’s one particularly good one in the first act and several in the second – and even when Holloway’s script turns corny, it never feels more overwrought than its genre might imply.
Acting-wise, everyone seems to be on the same page about what kind of ghost story they’re telling: After all, this isn’t Hamlet. But James and Heusinger have real chemistry, even though Lou’s the far better-written of the characters. Jimmy, meanwhile, is so unlikeable that on opening night, one audience member felt the need to boo him. Twice. (As much as the booing was overkill, and as much as Mirvish should probably remind its audiences of proper theatre etiquette, Jimmy kind of had it coming – the guy’s a real piece of work.)
Listen: As a critic, I grump for a living. To my eye, most of Mirvish’s recent programming has been disappointing – even The Woman in Black, ostensibly a palate cleanser from the company’s barrage of kitschy jukebox musicals, was a letdown.
But Paranormal Activity is one of the few recent screen-to-stage adaptations that overwhelmingly succeeds at translating a story from one form to another. The plot forges new ground but stays true to the atmosphere of its source material; the scares jolt in the moment and linger in the mind. Grump-proof? Not quite. But Paranormal Activity should make even the biggest skeptics believe – not only in phantoms and demons, but in the unshakeable power of live theatre.