Is there a place between the living and the dead?
4th Wall Theatre Company Artistic Director Philip Lehl didn’t necessarily think so but after he and his wife (and company co-founder) Kim Tobin-Lehl saw The Thin Place in an off-Broadway productionin New York, he wasn’t quite so sure.
Now he’s bringing the one-act play in a regional premiere to Houston and while he says it isn’t a horror play, he believes that many audience members will, like him, leave the theater with a very unsettled feeling thanks to what unfolds.
“I am not a religious or very spiritual person but at this play I had the experience of feeling like there was a place between the living and the dead called the thin place and I had been taken to it or was in it,” he says. “And I was very creeped out by that. I know from talking to other people who saw it or wrote about it that seems to be the experience.
“But what better kind of play for the dark days of Halloween and fall when the sun deserts the earth?” he adds, laughing.
In The Thin Place, playwright Lucas Hnath (A Doll’s House, Part 2) raises the question of whether the living can find some way to communicate with the dead. Rolled into this are our fears of death and of the dead, as well as how people may be manipulated.
Joining Lehl in the cast is Faith Fossett (The Glass Menagerie) who plays the central role of Hilda, a woman who is trying to deal with the loss of loved ones and believes she has contact with the other side. Lehl who has worked with Fawcett before, says “She brings a quality to this role that was very important. It’s a sort of innocence. She’s the one who believes most in the thin place. It’s her character’s story.”
Carolyn Johnson (Stages: End of the Rainbow) is making her 4th Wall debut and plays Linda, the psychic who says she can communicate with the dead. It is her profession. She and Hilda become friends and Linda introduces Hilda to some rich, smart friends Jerry played by Lehl and Sylvia played by Courtney Lomelo (Catastrophic Theatre: The Book of Grace). Conflict develops between the two women.
Also of special note is that set design is by Rec Room’s award-winning Stefan Azizi, lighting design by multi-award winner Christina Gianneli, sound design by Robert Leslie Meek and costume and properties design by Samantha Hyman.
Lehl is very circumspect about describing the plot because after all, what’s a good ghost story if you know exactly what’s coming next.
“It really is a play about story telling — like Irish playwright Conor McPherson telling stories (The Wier, The Good Thief). We hear these stories and it puts us in a kind of a heightened listening mode.
“It’s not a horror play. There aren’t startles like in a horror movie. But it’s the most creeped out I’ve ever been watching a play. I was deeply affected by it. And when I read it and now that I’m working on it that has not changed,” Lehl says.
“Will you scream? I doubt it. Will you start to feel uneasy? I bet you $100 you will. It puts people in the thin place where you start to feel that ghosts or spirits could be with us.”
“The actors keep saying at the end of rehearsal: ‘I’m not walking out of here alone.'”
Performances are scheduled for October 13 through November 5 at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays. Special pay-what-you-can industry night Monday, October 30. At Studio 101, 1824 Spring Street. For more information, call 832-767-4991 or visit 4thwalltheatre.com. $17-$53.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2022.
