Review: “House on Haunted Hill” at B Street Theatre

From a campy, 1959 film worthy of a farce comes an equally ludicrous performance of House on Haunted Hill, adapted for stage by B Street Theatre.

The story follows an eccentric millionaire, Frederick Loren (played by Greg Alexander) and his wife Annabelle (Elisabeth Nunziato), who have invited a group of five strangers to a “haunted house” party with the promise of $10,000. But with whispers of ghosts, murders and other unknown terrors, some may not make it out alive.

The play does well to highlight some of the more ridiculous schemes in the movie, including a steaming vat of acid in the basement, a Marilyn Monroe-type Nora Manning (played by the brilliant Tara Sissom) finding severed heads in her suitcase and a dangerous party favor given to all the guests.

Many of the lines put forth by the cast of mostly melodramatic actors are word-for-word from the film, which may reflect a strong desire from adapter Dave Pierini to stick closely to the original intentions of the film.

For a comedy, there seemed to be too many straight-man characters, which allowed Sissom (playing a ditzy damsel in distress) and Jason Kuykendall (a gallant yet dim test pilot) to completely steal the show with their hilarious character choices.

Although it is not necessary to have seen the movie to find the slapstick and physical humor comical, it may bump up this show from entertaining to amusing.