Can irony and fear coexist in the theatre? Anne Washburn’s ingenious adaptation of The Twilight Zone shows it’s a slippery combination. Knowingness strangles anxiety. In Mr Burns, Washburn used episodes of The Simpsons to examine a devastated America. Now she looks at her country through the television nightmares of the late 50s and early 60s.
Travellers on a coach realise that one of their number must be an alien: no one can figure out who it is – though the audience gets a hint from one passenger’s whirligig eyes. A child is sucked from her cot into an otherworldly dimension. Returning to earth, an astronaut finds that his fellow voyager in space is seen only by him. There are cryogenics, terrifying plastic surgery – and the threat of nuclear annihilation.
Director Richard Jones and designer Paul Steinberg evoke the black-and-white originals with added archness. The drilling theme tune is replicated, as is the stunned style of acting: John Marquez, taking the part of the sonorous narrator, is particularly good at deadpanning. As tribute turns to parody, what is lost is the hysterical belief that made the episodes so compelling, as thriller plots slithered into the supernatural, and projected the terrors of the cold war.
Washburn has cut and spliced episodes, with the result that the narrative drive wavers. She does leave intact a scene in which neighbours fall out over the occupation of a nuclear bunker. It’s impressive – but underlines too heavily the political content of a series in which the uncanny begins to look penetrating. The disappearance of figures from newspaper photos, which at first seems merely spooky, carries memories of the doctoring of pictures in the former Soviet Union. The lighter the touch, the further the reach. All hail to a great running gag about cigarettes.
