Comedy Theatre

Tampere

Finland

Stephen Mallatratt's adaptation of Susan Hill's book Woman in Black is an unusual piece of theatre. Two actors tell the tale of solicitor Arthur Kipps finding out the dark secrets of the late Drablow family and the isolated Eel Marsh House. As unbelievable as it sounds, a ghost-story-on-stage really is spooky.

The adaptation is based on an idea of a play within a play. Mr Kipps has hired a theatre director/actor to work out a theatre piece of his troubling story. So the story starts as a rehearsal in an empty theatre. The costumes, furniture and props needed are 'improvised' as the story goes on. The stage is empty so all the spaces and atmospheres are created with only lighting and sound. This gives the sound designer endless possibilities. The audience is wound in a soundscape that changes the mood and gives worrying hints of what might be expected… or not.

The sounds used in the production are mixed here into a sequence, which roughly follows the timeline of the play. Most cues are only excerpts of the original ambiences.

Janne Auvinen

Janne Auvinen is a sound and lighting designer for theatre, television, museums and exhibitions and a graduate from The Theatre Academy of Finland. He has worked as a designer in most major theatres in Finland and his designs include; An Inspector Calls, The Gambler, Can't Pay Won't Pay, Hamlet, A View From A Bridge, West Side Story, Man of La Mancha, Woman in Black, 39 Steps, Little Shop of Horrors plus several Finnish plays and musicals. Beside his theatre work he has also designed his own sound and lighting installations in museums and galleries. TV and radio work includes sound designs and TV scripts for Finnish Broadcasting Company and independent production houses. Janne is at the moment working as a partner and senior theatre consultant at Akukon Consulting Engineers Ltd., the leading acoustical and theatre design company in Scandinavia and Baltic countries. The consultancy work includes all major theatres, concert halls and cultural centres in Finland as well as international building projects in Palestine, Norway, Baltic countries, China and Russia.

[janneauvinen[at]mac.com]