‘The Woman In Black’ Is Masterful Suspense

Milwaukee Repertory Theater presents The Woman in Black in the Stiemke Studio, January 21 –March 23, 2025. Pictured: Mark Hawkins and Ben Porter. Photo by Michael Brosilow.

For decades the Milwaukee Repertory Theater has been reshaping the definition of “repertory” in its title. Years ago it meant a resident company rotating the same professional actors in various plays for set runs. By now it means finding the right players for the challenge and trying to create good theater by whatever means.

The means in hand at the Stiemke Studio is to import the polished suspense theater and nimble compressed stagecraft Britain does best, in the producing hands of two notable touring companies, PW Productions and Pemberley Productions.

The Rep has turned the Stiemke over to them wholesale with a clever script twist, a talented cast and behind-the-scenes masters that have worked out all the kinks in 33 years on the West End and on tour.

It is their Gothic-theater version of novelist Dame Susan Elizabeth Hill’s The Woman in Black. Whatever vibes you feel at the mention of foggy moors, dank bogs, old mansions, cemetery visions — and upper lip pretentions that “there are no ghosts” – will creep up on you in the deceptive everyday atmosphere of two lone actors, simple props, fairly bare stage and gray drapes.

PW Productions has polished such magic – seemingly simple on the exterior but wham! when the sound effects, lighting, design and acting hit you – in productions of The 39 Steps and Hound of the Baskervilles. Of course, you have to enjoy the florid British prose, the styles of the Bronte sisters, the brainy chills of Agatha Christie and that entire genre to get full satisfaction.

Three actors are on call to take the two spots on stage (opening night it was Ben Porter and Mark Hawkins and I doubt you will be disappointed when the most senior British veteran of the trio, David Acton, takes over the role of Arthur Kipps). The droll gimmick is that Hawkins as The Actor seems the most entrepreneurial and polished while Porter as Kipps starts out befuddled and altogether untheatrical. As the play goes on, The Actor becomes the hysterical one and Kipps fluidly adopts many accents and postures as he relives his story. The actors trade back and forth not only who is whom but who is taking the reins.

And no, I won’t tell you the story.  Both actors have down pat and perfectly measured their clipped British style, with Porter amazingly easy in putting on different voices and Hawkins flipping back and forth from assured to frightened.

They weave solid timing into the sudden bursts of sound effects and lighting that envelop them. The adapter on record is Stephen Mallatratt and the director is Robin Herford. This is not the Milwaukee Rep breaking new ground but saluting the modern methods of enhancing the old. This is a very crafty way of enlivening old-style theater. The procedure is worked out on every level, as audiences on future tours will appreciate.

I suspect the running up and down the theater aisles would be more effective in a different space and that the Rep audience may sometimes be a tad ahead of the built-in ominous pauses and blackouts. But all praise to designer Michael Holt for unleashing surprises, sound designer Stephen Frost and lighting designer Anshuman Bhatia for keeping us on edge, and all the busy tech hands involved.

Be warned that construction on Wells St. makes Water St. the best entrance for the Stiemke on the main floor of the emerging Associated Bank Theater Center for the Rep. The Woman in Black occupies the Stiemke Studio through March 23.

The Woman in Black Gallery

Dominique Paul Noth served for decades as film and drama critic, later senior editor for features at the Milwaukee Journal. You’ll find his blog here and here.