The Moors by Jen Silverman
Directed by Joel Horwood. Production Designer: Aloma
Barnes Sound Designer: Damian Ashcroft Lighting Designer: Stefan Wronski Set
Construction: Simon Grist Scenic Painting: Letitia Stewart Production Stage
Manager: Lexi Sekuless Shadow Stage Manager: Ariana Barzinpour Programming
support: Timmy Sekuless and Zeke Chalmers Photographer: Daniel Abroguena
Producer: Lexi Sekuless Productions Major partner: Elite Event Technology
Principal Sponsor: Willard Public Affairs. The Mill Theatre. Thursday March 27 –
Saturday April 12 2025 Bookings: events.humanitix.com
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
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| Sarah Nathan Tuesdale as Emilie in The Moors |
The
macabre meets the bizarre in director Joel Horwood’s intriguing production of
Jen Silverman’s The Moors. The intimate Mill Theatre, home to Lexi Sekuless
Productions, is the ideal venue to present this Gothic parody, set on the bleak
and windswept Yorkshire Moors. Although inspired by the lives of the Bronte
Sisters, Silverman’s play has nothing to do with the famous sisters. The brother
Bramwell is hidden away in an attic, and fed gruel by a morose maid through a
slat in the ceiling. Emilie is the name of a governess who appears to take up a
position in the bleak residence and Agatha and Huldie are two sisters. Echoes of
Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre may be recognized by lovers of the Bronte novels
but The Moors is essentially Silverman’s flight of fantasy.
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| Andrea Close as Agatha. Chris Zuber as Dog |
As the audience
enters the dimly lit theatre they encounter Huldie (Rachel Howard) writing in
her diary. Her elder sister Agatha (Andrea Close) is sewing and the maid Marjory
when in the Parlour and Mallory when in the scullery (Steph Roberts) is
obsessively polishing a jug. At Agatha’s feet lies the family dog (Chris Zuber)
In keeping with the gothic convention Emilie (Sarah Nathan-Truesdale ) is the
outsider who enters the house in response to an invitation supposedly from
Branwell to take up the position of governess. To her surprise, Emilie discovers
that there is no child to governess and the letters were not written by
Branwell. And so the plot thickens with all the surprising twists and turns that
one might expect from the bizarre and the absurd.
Also venturing into the
absurd is the sub plot between the mastiff hound (Chris Zuber) and the petite
Moorhen (Petronella van Tienen ), a moving tale of love and betrayal,
beautifully played out by Zuber and van Tienen and mirroring the complexity of
human relationships.
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| Steph Roberts as Marjory. Sarah Nathan Truesdale as Emilie |
Horwood has chosen a brilliant cast and directed them with
flair and clarity. Howard energetically plays the younger sister Huldie obsessed with literary aspirations and the
desperate need to be noticed. She catapults towards a manic finale. Close convincingly emanates an
air of Whistler’s mother and stony Victorian repressiveness softened only by her release from sexual repression. Roberts’s maid is the Riff Raff of Silverman’s
Gothic melodrama. Roberts stamps every role she plays with her unique ability to
create a character that is her own. Gesture and voice are used to good effect to
differentiate between Marjory and Mallory and then aspiring author Margaret.
Nathan-Truesdale’s Emilie effectively charts the challenging journey from the
naïve innocent to the strong survivor transformed by the power of the vast and
bleak moors. Zuber’s philosophizing dog and Petronella’s sweetly vulnerable
Moorhen are a delight to watch as they play out Nature’s inevitable destiny.
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| Rachel Howard as Huldie |
Stefan Wronski’s lighting design and Damian Ashcroft’s sound design lend the
production a powerful intensity. In the intimate space Howard gives full blast
to Huldie’s Murder song with rock stadium potency provided by Wronski and
Ashcroft.
Silverman’s Gothic melodrama has been given a fully professional
production at the Mill Theatre. Joel Horwood’s casting and direction maximize on
an audience’s fascination with the gothic. The Moors is no Jane Eyre,
Frankenstein or Turn of the Screw, but it is an entertaining and imaginative
tribute to the Victorian gothic literature. The play runs for eighty minutes with no
interval and guarantees audiences an original and highly enjoyable night of
theatre at The Mill Theatre.
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| Chris Zuber as Dog. Petronella van Tienen as Moorhen |
