'Skriker' revival is far from ordinary

RALEIGH -- As Halloween approaches, you might consider seeing "The Skriker," Caryl Churchill's 1994 nightmare-fantasy. It teems with masked demons, ear-piercing screams, possessed and imperiled children and lyrical litanies of horror and death.

But Raleigh Ensemble Players' revival of "The Skriker" is no ordinary haunted house. Its scariness comes less from its creatures than from Churchill's suggestion that everything that goes wrong, from nervous breakdowns to car crashes (and Wall Street panics and hurricanes, too?) comes from an inescapable and ineradicable plague.

That plague is the Skriker, a mythological shapeshifter (from English legend) who appears in many guises and is embodied in REP's production by a multitude of actors. Shunned and vengeful, the Skriker hounds a pair of sisters, Josie and Lily, the latter pregnant. The Skriker wants the baby -- someone to love and be loved by -- and pursues that goal rapaciously and cunningly. He takes the shape of a bag lady, a waiflike child, a suitor -- even the sofa the sisters sit on.

"The Skriker" is a dense, demanding play, a hundred intermissionless minutes lit in appropriate gloom by Thomas Mauney on his claustrophobic, pallid arena set dominated by a gutted piano on wheels, whose strings the actors kick and pluck. They make a demon-harp score under the action.

Director C. Glen Matthews moves the 15-person cast around the tiny playing area with choreographic precision, giving Churchill's dizzying, quasi-Joycean language a physical analog. Following along requires some patience, but it isn't all meant to make semantic sense. Some of it washes over you, strange and slippery, compelling but impenetrable.

The same is often true of the production. "The Skriker" walks a very fine theatrical line, and it needs diligent restraint to keep from losing its bearings or turning campy.

Matthews' staging is tightly organized, but occasionally a chant or dance goes from the grotesque into the loopy. The frequent screams and fights of the commendably intense ensemble sometimes get overwhelming (although Churchill and Matthews both have a canny knack for turning down the volume at the right moment). On opening night, the performance didn't build to its climax; instead, it seemed to flicker out at the end.

But what held "The Skriker" together was a poised, subtly modulated performance by Whitney Griffin as Lily, the young expectant mother. Her eyes wide but keen, her movements economical and unforced, her presence strong and steadfast. She gave the whirligig experience a sturdy center.

REP's production of Churchill's "A Number" was a highlight of Triangle theater in 2007, an austere but potent warning about the perils of human cloning. "The Skriker" goes "A Number" one better: It's telling us that we originals are already in trouble. Although "The Skriker" doesn't pack the same compact wallop as its predecessor, it seems an apt play for this volatile, anxious moment.