Playwright: Randall Coburn At: InFusion (sic) Theatre Company, Apollo Studio, 2540 N. Lincoln. Tickets: 773-935-6100; www.Ticketmaster.com; $20. Runs through: Oct. 31
Because it is presented with all the joy of a Lutheran sermon in Minnesota on a Sunday in January, it’s difficult to know if the world premiere of Ghostbox is intended as Halloween entertainment or not. If you interpret “entertain” as holding attention, Ghostbox is fine. But if you interpret “entertain” to mean amusing, well, forget about it.
OK, it’s not boring, but then it’s only 50 minutes long. Even so, comprehension comes slowly as Ghostbox shifts between present and past, or between past and further past (it’s unclear and probably doesn’t matter). Reduced to bare bones, a virginal young woman marries a man who, we infer, is worldlier than she. A son is born but, we infer, dies in infancy. The man, Daniel (we don’t learn the woman’s name), commits suicide having convinced himself that he is impure, immoral and a demon as defined in the New Testament, and that his son’s death is his fault. He returns to his wife—the audience must infer whether as ghost or demon—and she hangs herself, thereby reuniting the two of them either in Paradise or Perdition.
All of this—except the hanging—is told in flashbacks which means 45 minutes of Ghostbox is pure exposition. Actually, the hanging might be a flashback, too! Much is conveyed via video tricked up to look like grainy home movies of Her and Him a few decades back. Indeed, the video screen is the dominant element in Amanda Sweger’s utterly simple set of table, chairs and naked light bulb. When there’s no video, the screen remains lit so that a third figure—voiceless and cloaked like Death—can be silhouetted behind the screen, which also is used to project biblical quotations supporting Daniel’s despondent view of himself.
This might be an interesting Halloween show if playwright Coburn and director Mitch Golob had given us more to work with, perhaps a trifle of amusement or a touch of gothic horror. But, no, the show is sober as a judge. Coburn, a very hot Chicago property right now, provides so little info about his characters that it’s difficult to sympathize with them. Daniel seems a fool overwhelmed by religiosity, which a severe Lutheran upbringing could do to you (or any other Judeo-Christian religion you prefer). Hey, guys, give us a hint about how we’re supposed to take this! Can we have some fun?
Performers Victoria Gilbert and Kevin Crispin are engaged and committed, but even in a studio theater they are impossible to hear when frequent elevated trains rattle close by. Also, the video sound is muddy. Both factors compound Coburn’s intentional obfuscation. Ghostbox needs to be longer. It need not provide greater clarity, but it does need to provide fuller characters.