Theatre in Review: Grey House (Lyceum Theatre) A cabin in the woods. An impassable blizzard. A cut telephone cord. A car accident that leaves a young couple stranded. And a houseful of bizarre characters: In Grey House, playwright Levi Holloway attempts nothing less than the resurrection of the classic Broadway thriller, a genre that thrived in the years between The Bat (1920) and Deathtrap (1978) but faded away soon after, done in by too many gimmicks and self-reflexive gags. Grey House has many of the standard elements, but it also tries to scare up new shivers using Stephen King-style plot twists. Whether you are willing to go along for the dark ride will depend on your tolerance for eerie appearances, unexplained blackouts, and screams in the night as opposed to logical plotting and interesting characters. It is a dark and stormy night, circa 1977, when Henry and Max (don't call her Ashley; she hates the name) total their car in the middle of nowhere. They come stumbling in -- literally, as Henry has broken his ankle -- looking for aid and assistance. Fat chance: They're entered a rustic hideaway with unstable electricity and no link to the outside world. It is, apparently, owned by the gruff, enigmatic Raleigh and her strange brood, which includes a quartet of girls ranging in age from about 10 to 16. The latter are weirdly self-possessed, when not actively hostile; indeed, they're real take-charge types, hoisting the wounded Harry on the couch and curtly giving Max orders. With snow piling up outside, Henry and Max try to make the best of their spooky situation. Raleigh passes through, bursting into rages that immediately subside. Henry, lulled by a few jars of Raleigh's home brew (suggestively known as "dead man's nectar"), finds one of the girls circling his head with measuring tape. Putting to use her first-aid skills, Raleigh applies a splint to Henry's ankle noting, "Oh this is gonna heal right the fuck up," even as his agony causes him to vomit. In addition, the atmosphere is tinged with the occult: The kids often predict what the adults are going to say. Max gets pulled into a vicious game of Truth or Dare in which lies have painful, possibly telekinetic, consequences. And what's going on in the basement, the door to which keeps opening of its own volition, emitting hellish clouds of haze? No spoiler alerts here: I'm not going to explain what is really going on -- indeed, I'm not sure I could -- but, for the first forty minutes or so, Grey House casts a certain malevolent spell. The design team has outdone itself: Scott Pask's cabin set is the kind of haunted house to be avoided even during the storm of the century; note the cutaway view of the roof, with beams that look like exposed bones. Natasha Katz has tucked away lighting instruments in every nook and cranny, creating ice-cold washes that seems to seep in through the floorboards and cracks in the walls. In Tom Gibbons' sound design, the house creaks and groans like a nineteenth-century schooner sailing into rough seas. Rudy Mance's costumes suggest different time periods, a clue worth pondering while waiting for something meaningful to happen. And, of course, if you're looking for a leading lady to strike a shivery tone, Laurie Metcalf is your woman. Dressed in jeans and flannel shirts, trailing an unkempt mane of brown and grey hair, and sporting glasses seemingly borrowed from Benjamin Franklin, she is the story's most intriguing wild card, peppering her dialogue with pregnant pauses that allow unsettling thoughts to fester. (Hang on for the scene when she reads a bedtime story for her youngest, a tale of cute little mice that quickly become a parable of nature red in tooth and claw.) But something odd happens along the way: As the action meanders toward its climax, director Joe Mantello can't prevent the tension from draining away. This is in part because most of the shock moments have little or nothing to do with the situation; they're a collection of easy setups, quickly laughed off. And when one finds out what is going on -- let's just say that, in this house, history has a way of repeating itself -- the impact is surprisingly flat, despite some impressive Grand Guignol effects. Among other things, the plot is loaded with danglers, with the presence of at least two characters left unexplained. (A tasteless reference to the Holocaust acts as an irritant; such events should be left out gimcrack entertainments like this.) Besides failing to make a compelling account for itself -- the finale seems to resolve nothing -- Grey House never delivers compelling characters. Tatiana Maslany and Paul Sparks work hard to lend some human dimension to Max and Henry, but they are little more than a generic young couple with some vaguely suggested problems. (Henry also undergoes a last-minute change of heart that really makes no sense.) The four girls lack distinctive personalities, despite the presence of Sophia Anne Caruso (Broadway's official creepy young thing) and the striking deaf actress Millicent Simmonds; they're a quartet of evil Matildas, asserting themselves in unison to surprisingly little effect. They're all trapped in a play that, too often, is content to coast on its sinister atmosphere without offering a worthwhile payoff. Grey House is the first production of the 2023 -- 24 season, kicking off an unusually crowded summer of attractions clearly aimed at tourist audiences looking for a good time. Fair enough, but this impressively slick production fails to return the thriller to its old pride of place. As Max and Henry discover, once you enter Raleigh's hellish home, it is almost impossible to leave. Believe me, I felt for them. --David Barbour 
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