40th Street Stage production is highly visual - and adventurous

THE SPIRITS are everywhere, making us see things and do things we shouldn't."

Add dark, ominous music and very little lighting, and you get the idea.

These are the opening lines in the quite daring and innovative world premiere stage adaptation of the classic German horror film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" at the 40th Street Stage in Norfolk.

Its ominous tone is more threatening than what follows (as, in fact, was the case in the original film, released in the United States in 1921 and hailed by some as the granddaddy of all horror films). Philip Odango, directing a cast of some 20 screaming and cowering souls, has somewhat faithfully adapted the original script by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer and serves up a campy, highly entertaining version that incorporates film mixed with somewhat berserk live actors.

There is an eerie musical score by two Finnish composers who use keyboards, drums and percussion in a Phillip Glass-like way that too often refuses to stay in the background. Framed by black-and-white set designs, there is an angular suggestion of off-kilter madness. The audience is surrounded by actors who refuse to stay on any given stage. The result is highly visual. And adventurous!

Perhaps it's not altogether frightening, but this, nonetheless, is entertaining. But is it German Expressionism or just overacting? You can take your choice, but consider that it is difficult to go over the top with this material. Dramatically, it doesn't hold together, but illusion may be enough.

Christie Whiting in the role of the rotund, threatening Dr. Caligari is something of a local, mature Cinderella story. She's worked backstage for years - among other places as stage manager for Symphonicity, the symphony orchestra of Virginia Beach. She returns to the stage with the lead role here - effectively suggesting a ranting mad man. The cross-sex casting only adds to the bizarre mood, along with a nose that would make both Jimmy Durante and Cyrano de Berge-rac look anemic. Odango apparently has a thing about casting women in men's roles. He also cast a female in the lead role of his vampire musical, "Bat Boy."

One female audience member reported that she got the biggest fright of all when she ran into this version of Dr. Caligari in the ladies' room before the show.

Caligari has an act in which he trots around his version of the sleeping dead, the somnambulist Cesare, who, upon the commands of the doctor, rises from the titular cabinet to answer questions from the audience. When Alan, a particularly foppish young man (played with flair by Logan Bennett), inquires how long he will live, he gets the bad news: "Until dawn tomorrow." Be assured, Alan's dead body is imminent.

A well-matched film by Ben Fuglaar accompanies many of the scenes and, at least in the performance I attended, was perfectly aligned with the onstage dialogue and action. I am told not all performances worked so well. It is an audaciously ambitious notion to try such a mixed-media effort with live actors conversing with screen characters. The best intermixing is a murder that is committed by a screen image upon a live, but quickly expiring, onstage actor. Timing is all-important.

German Expressionism, of which this film was a prime example, calls for bold strokes and, consequently, one can excuse the snarling and contortions that are sometimes more overwrought than stylistic.

The bad doctor shows up to explain the obvious - that there are "paranoid delusions" and "maniacal hallucinations" evident. And the screams! Anna Sosa as Jane and Lisa E. Munson as Brunhilde have sets of pipes that could rival Metropolitan Opera standards. It would be surprising if they couldn't be heard across the street in Fellini's restaurant. How long before the cops show up?

Sosa also displays quite a head of hair, which covers her entire face for certain stalking scenes.

The arrival of Caligari, and subsequent murders, occur in the midst of a love triangle among Jane, Alan and Francis, the narrator.

When Alan is murdered, the authorities think it might have been Francis. In the category of staccato delivery and strange British accents, Alec Gillam, as Francis, fares least well, mainly because his role has more lines.

Ashley Christopher Leach is properly thin, stark and white-faced as Cesare, a part originally played by Conrad Veidt (the Nazi in "Casablanca"). (And is there any doubt that Johnny Depp's Edward Scissorhands was modeled after this character?)

In the supporting cast, Teddy Powers is particularly toothy and charismatic as a suspected killer.

Highest praise of all should go to the hair and makeup design of Grace Swiney for quite a group of unique faces.

The finale, setting everything up as possibly a dream, was something of a cop-out back in 1921 - however, the original film is often mentioned as one of the first to suggest that realism was not necessary in films.

Odango and the producing Foppish Dandies company obviously have proper respect for the original, but they allow us to have fun with it in modern terms.

It's a Halloween hoot that gives you something to do while you're waiting around for a movie remake to someday be made by the likes of Tim Burton, David Lynch or Guillermo del Toro.

In the meantime, the local stage is the only place that has this.

Something new from something old.

Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com