Review: “The Moors” at Main Stage West

Dark comedy with Gothic overtones offers an absorbing evening full of surprises.

As you take your seat for the start of ‘The Moors,’ now playing at Main Stage West, the stage is almost entirely concealed behind a thin white sheet. A few minutes before the action begins, stage lights reveal a stationary female figure standing primly behind it. Her body is turned slightly to her left, there’s something unusual attached to the top of her head, and her hands are clasped awkwardly in front of her waist. It’s an arresting tableau, enticing, suggestive – but of what? This excellent production makes it well worth your while to find out.

Jen Silverman’s ‘The Moors’ tells a strange tale that may seem faintly familiar to readers of early Gothic novels. Two sisters and a maid inhabit a gloomy Victorian mansion on the edge of the moors. The time and place appear to be England, early 19th century. One sister is stern and domineering, the other is young and foolish. The maid is pregnant. Or has typhoid, or possibly both. The sisters’ names are Agatha and Huldey. The maid may be called Marjory and the room we see them in may be the drawing room, but - well, it’s difficult to be sure. Oh, and there’s a potentially savage but rather depressed large dog and before long there will be a moorhen. Of course.

Like any good mystery story, into this atmospheric-laden setting comes a visitor, in this case Emilie, a governess employed by the master of the house to educate a child. Except that there is no child, yet anyway, and the master, Agatha and Huldey’s brother Branwell (yes, the Bronte sisters had a brother of that name), has mysteriously disappeared. Who has lured the governess to this house on the moors, far from civilized society and bound on all sides by fog, and why?

Anyone who saw Main Stage West’s very good, recent production of ‘Wink’ by the same playwright, will know that anything can happen. Silverman excels at absurdist comedy that surprises at every turn, so that just when we think we’re beginning to get it, the play slips away from us like a will-o’-the-wisp, beckoning us to follow it once again. Echoes of ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Jane Eyre’ hang in the air as the characters slide in and out of antiquated language while seemingly affected by the wildness of the landscape that lies outside (“here on the moors one reaches such extremities of emotion”) and by their inarticulateness over what may lie within themselves (“there is no language for all the things lurking within us”).

‘The Moors’ is a haunting but brilliant play – better in my view than ‘Wink’- and once again Main Stage West pulls off a difficult thing with apparent ease. Director James Pelican, a self-confessed fan of Silverman who also directed ‘Wink,’ understands the exact blend of linguistic precision, physical comedy and tongue-in-cheek approach needed to carry the audience along for the ride, and the talented cast follows his lead with barely a misstep. Taylor Diffenderfer excels as Marjory, and her comic scenes with Madison Scarborough as Huldey and with Katherine Rupers as Emilie are perfectly pitched. Scarborough is thoroughly enjoyable as the vain and gullible Huldey, while Rupers’s complex relationship with Agatha, played with conviction by Brenda Reed, is skillfully navigated by both. Kevin Bordi plays The Mastiff with deft physical humor and Nora Summers plays the moorhen with just the right amount of sweetness and a slight physical tic that is bird-like, but never distracting.

Every technical aspect of this production is near-perfect, from the extraordinarily rich set that puts the vast reaches of the moorland and its enveloping fog right outside the window (set design by David Lear, wonderfully without a single nod to a fog machine), to the lighting that matches the mood of every scene (designed by Melissa Weaver), to the precise period and minimalist animal costumes (Tracy Hinman), to the sound design (Keith Baker, James Pelican) that brings the moors audibly to life.

Main Stage West does not shy away from challenges, and ‘The Moors’ is no exception. Managing Artistic Director Ivy Rose Miller and Producing Artistic Director Keith Baker have the happy knack of bringing together the right teams to tackle their demanding productions, leading this tiny theatre in Sebastopol to keep punching well above its weight. ‘The Moors’ is yet another theatrical gem from this company, and for an absorbing evening of theatre it could hardly be bettered.

‘The Moors’ runs from September 30 - October 23, 2022 at Main Stage West in Sebastopol. For more details and tickets, click here.