The Woman in Black has a few good jump scares – but an annoying frame narrative nearly smothers them

Open this photo in gallery:

David Acton and Ben Porter in The Woman in Black.Mirvish

• Title: The Woman in Black
• Written by: Susan Hill, adapted by Stephen Mallatratt
• Directed by: Robin Herford
• Performed by: David Acton, Ben Porter and James Byng
• Company: Mirvish Productions
• Venue: CAA Theatre
• City: Toronto
• Year: Runs until Jan. 4

In many ways, theatre is an unenviable medium for horror. The genre benefits from hyper-realism – the corn syrup blood and silicone guts of cinema – or, at the other extreme, complete abstraction, such that the mind can conjure up images and sensations far more frightening than any special effects team could ever hope to accomplish with lighting and props.

To that end, The Woman in Black is a bit of a rarity, a stage adaptation of Susan Hill’s novel of the same title. It’s the second-longest-running play in West End history – behind only The Mousetrap – and in a few key moments, the piece makes a compelling case for the theatre as a medium of horror.

Open this photo in gallery:

Ben Porter in The Woman in Black.Mirvish

But those jump scares – those sublime spooks that jolt even the most steel-hearted audience members from their seats – are infrequent. They’re punctuation for a story that insists upon an irritating play-within-a-play conceit, which pads the show’s runtime and leadens its pacing.

Much of The Woman in Black is very good – the acting, mainly, and the illusions which illustrate that titular spectre – but, owing to that peculiar frame narrative, more of it is lugubrious and thick.

When we meet Arthur Kipps (David Acton), it’s clear something’s happened to him: He wears his past on his face like a hockey mask. He’s written down a series of events which he intends to narrate to a small audience of friends and acquaintances – a ghost story, starring himself in the leading role.

One problem: He can’t act. (A problem not shared by Acton, who is excellent.) So, in an act of self-preservation, Kipps hires a man of the theatre – called only The Actor, played by Ben Porter, in The Woman in Black’s press materials – to help him out by playing him. (Kipps, meanwhile, will fill in as a series of side characters, one of several logically confounding choices in Stephen Mallatratt’s adaptation.)

That framing isn’t a horrendous idea in theory, but in director Robin Herford’s production, the should-I-act-or-not shtick draws out over nearly all of The Woman in Black’s first act. We hardly even get the exposition of Kipps’s actual story – the journey to that foggy haunted house, and the secrets tucked inside its rooms – until close to the 40-minute mark.

Open this photo in gallery:

David Acton and Ben Porter in The Woman in Black.Mirvish

But then, of course, we meet her, a floating cloud of darkness draped in inky black lace. The first time she skulked through the theatre on Sunday afternoon, a light wisp of fabric brushed against the hairs on my arm – I’m not proud of the yelp that escaped my lips once I realized who had so gently ghosted past me.

But that’s what’s so frustrating about The Woman in Black – when it’s good, it’s electric. But Mallatratt’s script seems intent on interrupting the work’s flow at every inflection point. When the action finally picks up in the second act, it’s not long before that dastardly frame narrative pops up again, completely trampling the momentum of the story.

Acton and Porter do their best to overcome the faults in the writing, and both are engaging speakers with a clear willingness to play along with the work’s genre. Porter’s eyes appear near-black under Anshuman Bhatia’s moody lighting design, an effect that adds greatly to The Actor’s curious presence in Kipps’s world – the scares, it seems, aren’t limited to Kipps’s memory, nor to that dilapidated villa shrouded in mist.

Indeed, visually speaking, The Woman in Black is mostly successful: Michael Holt’s set is simple and spare, and makes clever use of a semi-translucent scrim centre stage. Some parts of the story cry out for more detail – the climax, for instance – but for the most part, the production’s choice to leave the most disturbing details to the imagination is a smart one. After all, no stage gimmick could be scarier than the recesses of your own mind.

And in the end, I think that’s true of all the best spooky stories: Sure, they’re a bit silly in the moment, but don’t be surprised when, hours later, you find yourself looking over your shoulder for ghosts.