Phantasmagoria 3D!: turning a gimmick into a horrific hilarious art form
11 Nov 2024 - Photos by Matthew McLaren

3D in film is often used as a gimmick to try to pump life into an ailing franchise. Eric Woolfe (MacBeth At Tale Told By an Idiot, The House at Poe Corner, Dr Weathergloom's Here There Be Monsters, As You Like It), the madcap mastermind behind Eldritch Theatre's thriving franchise of macabre and multi-disciplinary masterpieces, has no need of another gimmick. But I suspect he never met a gimmick or a theatrical con, that he could resist. So 3D, so beloved in horror flicks and camp spectacle, is added to the sleight of hand illusions, puppets, horror and hilarity to spectacular effect in Phantasmagoria 3D!. This particular form of 3D—"Live 3D!"—is a canny uncanny melding of shadow puppetry and 3D projection. I think. The results are intentionally crude and comedic, until they aren't and suddenly  Phantasmagoria 3D! actually terrifies. All thoughts of "how are they doing this?" dissolve in the face of the end of the world being brought about by a winged, tentacled creature conjured from the Necronomicon of Abdul Alhazred. The techniques and performances are so sophisticated and deftly performed. that the audience's previously incessant laughter become the screams that William Castle had hoped to achieve.

We first meet our narrator as he dazzles with a mysterious card trick conducted in a foreign language later dubbed "mantongue." The magic trick turns dark and the next cards help conjure, with the assistance of a snarky demon who hovers over and amongst us, the ferocious beast that will bring about the end of the world. "You have chosen your destruction!" intones Woolfe. We then meet Gillette Sharpshank who takes over by reading us the letters, stories, he has submitted to a science-fiction pulp magazine. Sharpshank wears a tin foil tiara with horns that is a clue to his state of mind. But who wouldn't be driven to insanity by what Sharpshank has seen? And what he shows us. What follows is a ribald riff on Lovecraft, complete with vividly voluptuous prose and an astonishing arsenal of alliteration, a tale of terror to titillate and torture one's fragile grip on the reality we cling to. Not only Lovecraft's style and themes get worked over, but playwright Woolfe also delves into the cracks in Lovecraft's oeuvre and life, with allusions to his sexphobia and fervently denied homosexuality. The dripping delighted disdain that Woolfe injects into finding a "man's manly manhood" not in its "secret place," but on the face of a troglodyte goblin is delicious.

Woolfe is a clever and charismatic performer, able to draw the audience into his confidence before barking caustically. There is a sincerity, a dedication to the characters, that makes the unbelievable believable. Even as we begin to doubt Sharpshank's story, we willingly follow him into the bowels of hell, below even the "poo sewers," to witness horrors that no eyes should ever see. He is ably complemented by two unseen puppeteers/projection performers, Kira Hall (Avenue Q) and Michelle Urbano, who interact seamlessly from behind the pulsating veil of the beyond. Also deserving credit is director Melanie McNeill who somehow manages to help keep the madness and multitude of layers coherent, choreographed carefully enough that it would keep the National Ballet on its toes. Live 3D! may be a gimmick but Phantasmagoria 3D! turns it into an art form. Lovecraft's tortured tomes were born of a fear of the unknown and a distaste of the known deemed unknowable. Eldritch Theatre dives right in and exposes the fearful and frightening, douses it with sight gags and jump scares, and reminds us that we have chosen our implement of destruction and now must pay the price. And we pay willingly in laughter and screams. And by buying the soap that is hawked throughout the show and is for sale in the lobby. Woolfe loves his gimmicks and grifts, and so do we.