Lovecraft plays

So, last night Janice and I and a bunch of friends from the reading group (Allan, Yvette & James, Lisa & Shaun) met up at Open Circle Theater and saw this year's cycle of Lovecraft plays. We'd been lucky enough to see these twice before, in 2004 ('Narlathotep', 'Dreams in the Witch House', and the puppet play 'The Doom That Came to Sarnath') and again last year ('The Colour Out of Space', 'The Thing at the Doorstep', and 'Strange Magics').* This time around they had a set of four plays: 'The Picture in the House' (one of HPL's weakest stories v. effectively used as a frame-story for the next two tales), 'Nyarlathotep', 'The Cats of Ulthar', and 'Dreams in the Witch House'. As usual it was great fun to see what they could do with the old Lovecraft stories, given the constraints of a small cast, small stage, and small budget. And once again they proved that enthusiastic acting, a good feel for the material, and a few creative special effects can go far. Seeing these makes me want to tackle an adaptation myself. Their new venue wasn't quite as good as their old one, but there's not much they could have done about that, since the little theatre they've used in years past was demolished over the course of the past year.
I'll definitely be going back again next year.
--JDR



*Having unfortunately missed the 2005 triptych of 'The Shunned House', 'Cool Air' and "Shadow Over Innsmouth'