Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – The great Laurie Metcalf leads GREY HOUSE, Levi Holloway’s uneasy mix of deliciously pulpy horror and genuine trauma

• By drediman
• June 3, 2023
• No Comments

Last week, the 2023/2024 Broadway season got underway when Levi Holloway’s Grey House officially opened at the Lyceum Theatre. Originally presented by Chicago’s tiny, envelope-pushing A Red Orchid Theatre, the play arrives on the Great White Way emboldened by a performance by the great Laurie Metcalf and a sinister production by director Joe Mantello. As for the play itself, the broad premise aligns with a typical horror flick scenario in which a car crash finds a couple stranded in a remote cabin deep within the woods, complete with requisite creepy, mysterious inhabitants (no spoilers here).

Horror is a genre that is relatively under-represented in live theater, at least on this side of the pond. With Grey House, Holloway has sought not only to alter the trend, but to marry the genre with some weightier dramatic themes, particularly relating to genuine instances of trauma. If the work is not completely successful in this pursuit — there’s an uneasy, somewhat forced relationship between the play’s parade of deliciously pulpy thrills and its more serious aspirations that only reveal themselves in late-in-the-game Sixth Sense-like revelations (again, no spoilers here!) — it’s nonetheless a wild ride worth taking solely for its entertainment and thrill value.

As mentioned at the top of this write-up, the real stars of the show are Ms. Metcalf and the production itself. Two time Tony-winner Ms. Metcalf does what she does best — that is, deliver a voracious performance that borders on melodrama. It’s the kind of performance that valiantly straddles both of the playwright’s ambitions for the play. The rest of the young cast follow suite with performances that embrace the piece’s gleefully macabre tone. In terms of the production, the integral lighting and sound design work should be called out in the way they create an undulating world that literally devours its human prey.

RECOMMENDED

GREY HOUSE
Broadway, Play
Lyceum Theatre
1 hour, 40 minutes (without an intermission)
Open run