Go! feature

Miami University Theatre presents the dark but highly entertaining and visually stunning urban fairy tale “The Skriker” next week.

“I think it’s a brilliant piece,” said director Roger Bechtel. “It’s the story of two young women who run off to London. One is pregnant and the other has a child that she has killed but we don’t know why.

“London becomes a world filled with creatures that are both human and not human at the same time,” he said, as these “innocents confront the madness of the modern world.”

Written by Caryl Churchill, considered one of the top playwrights currently working, the script is often complex and maybe a little confusing, but a careful production such as Bechtel promises would keep the audience engaged.

The central character Skriker is a “shape shifter and death portent” that haunts the two young women. The play explores mental illness as the direct result of a world that is inhabited by demons, sprites and fairies, and whose intervention and interference can drive a person mad.

“The stage is a black void and things come and go from that black void to induce a state of paranoia,” Bechtel said. “We wonder who will the Skriker approach next and how will we know that it’s the Skriker.”

The special effects employed in the production include creating the illusion of a person into a jar like a biology speciment, a 10-foot tall creature, vocal effects and a projection screen.

“The costumes are just bizarre and entertaining and very spectacular,” Bechtel said.

“It’s a very simple story, but you just need to dig inside it,” he said. “It starts with a four page monologue that seems to be gibberish, but if you listen you find out that it’s the story of Rumpelstiltskin and we find out that the Skriker was Rumpelstiltskin in an other time.

“Our job is to make all that as clear for the audience as we possibly can.bWe want to give the theater audience an experience they don’t normally have, to strike the nervous system directly.”

• WHAT: “The Skriker” by Caryl Churchill
• WHERE: Gates-Abegglen Theatre, Center for Performing Arts, Miami University, Oxford
• WHEN: Nov. 15-Dec. 2
• COST: $9 adults, $8 seniors, $6 for Miami students and youth under 18
• MORE INFO: (513) 529-3200; www.tickets.muohio.edu