James’ Ambiguous Novella - Deliciously Jumpy

“A modest monument of the bold pursuit of ambiguity” is how one literary luminary described Henry James’ Gothic ghost novella, Turn of the Screw.

So, it was no surprise when the lighting was low, the emotions were intense and the jumps occasionally scary, when West Yorkshire Playhouse set out to create an adaptation of James’s 1898 work that was a cross between Nicole Kidman’s The Others and Daniel Radcliffe’s The Woman in Black.

In the same way that the award-winning movie The Exorcist has never dated – largely because it is set in a modern America and seems totally possible – so it is with James’ book, where there is a distinct absence of conventional ‘ghosts’, but an abundance of ambiguity that appeals to the human psyche. For that reason, it does not fall victim to the passing of time and is a play for today as much as it was a book for the late 19th century.

Carli Norris plays the governess hired by a man who has become responsible for his young nephew and niece, Miles and Flora, after the deaths of their parents. He lives mainly in London but also has a country house, Bly, is uninterested in raising the children and tells the governess that under no circumstances should she contact him.

But is she going mad and imagining the ghosts of her Bly predecessors, Miss Jessel, and the man with whom she supposedly had sexual relations, Peter Quinn, or can her two charges see the dead staff but, for whatever reason, are either in denial or refusing to admit their visions?

Turn of the Screw is charged with emotion and creates incredible suspense as it builds towards its crescendo. But, to continue with the film analogy, it finishes like Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey, leaving you fulfilled in one way but totally baffled in another. But wasn’t that what James originally intended and Tim Luscombe’s adaptation merely toes the lie? James supposedly remained on the fence not entirely declaring what the novella was meant to say to his audience; ambiguity was his preferred state.

It was a great cast last night which is why it worked. Maggie McCarthy was wonderful as housekeeper Mrs Grose, straight out of Upstairs Downstairs, whilst Annabel Smith and Michael Hanratty, were superb as they transitioned between an array of characters, all anchored by the suitably paranoid Carli Norris.

This play will keep you on your toes and leave you thinking long after curtain down. Once in a while the role of theatre must surely be to exercise the grey matter rather than simply to blindly entertain? Turn of the Screw will do just that……but it is still entertaining!

Turn of the Screw
West Yorkshire Playhouse
Until Saturday 24 March
Until Saturday