Paranormal Activity

Play (2024)
by Levi Holloway
Directed by Felix Barrett
Emerson Colonial Theatre
Theater District, Boston
July 11-30, 2026

Scenic and Costume Designer: Fly Davis; Illusions Designer: Chris Fisher; Lighting Designer: Anna Watson; Sound Designer: Gareth Fry; Video and Projections Designer: Luke Halls

With Cher Álvarez (Lou), Travis A. Knight (James), Shannon Cochran (Carolanne), Andrea Syglowski (Etheline Cosgrave), Bobby J. Howlett (Ensemble)

Cher Álvarez as Lou, Travis A. Knight as James in 'Paranormal Activity' — Cher Álvarez as Lou
Travis A. Knight as James
in “Paranormal Activity”
Photo: Matthew Murphy

A thriller about a newly married couple and a haunted house.

Lou (Cher Álvarez) and James (Travis A. Knight) have been married a year and have just moved from Chicago to London. It’s not entirely clear why they have moved, but gradually it seems that Lou has been having some emotional trouble. Nonetheless, Lou and James are romantic and playful with one another, and, apart from what seems like Lou’s lurking depression and anxiety, life is pretty normal.

James spends quite a bit of time talking with his doting and intrusive mother, Carolanne (Shannon Cochrane), over Facetime, and she does not hesitate to offer all kinds of advice about how he should manage his marriage. Gradually, spooky and weird stuff begins to happen at their new home, so much so that they call in a medium, Etheline Cosgrave (Andrea Syglowski), to hold a seance. Etheline seems to be effective at getting some voice to come forth which might be Lou’s mother who had died years before in a fire. Things escalate and get weirder, and the real spooky fun begins. (See spoilers section below for a lot more.)

The two-tiered set by Fly Davis is quite effective overall, pitching a bedroom, a bathroom and a third room upstairs, with a living room and kitchen below. Strange goings on occur in a third room upstairs, characters unpredictably appear on the stairs and on different floors, and the multi-leveled set effectively helps the constantly lurking and sometimes shocking set of actions to slither and slink up and down the set with considerable effect.

There are a few different moments when some real stage magic occurs and things come and go in the blink of an eye yielding no reasonable comprehension of how this might be possible. Shadows lurk and hover, and there is a constant hum and drone anticipating an omnipresent and imminent disaster. Lighting designer Anna Watson, sound designer Gareth Fry, and especially illusions designer Chris Fisher, are kept very busy maintaining a high level of suspense. Sounds start and creak to a stop. Lights linger, flash, and go out. And the disappearing poofs that occur at a few different points are indeed magical.

The undercurrent of the narrative is psychological, and how this develops, in addition to the everpresent shadows, hums and disappearances, is what makes the show spooky. There is not a great deal of coherence or thoroughness in the narrative, so the show probably works best for those who just like being scared and do not worry too much about the logic or explanation behind what has happened. The level of suspense is clearly high for many in attendance, clearly many of who love to shudder, though I found it more modestly unnerving. The disappearing acts, however, were, even for my more tempered sensibilities, quite amazing.

The acting by Cher Álvarez and Travis A. Knight is decent, especially in the parts where Lou and James are lovey-dovey and just having a good time. Given what transpires, I might have expected a bit more lurking in the psychological wings, a bit more of a suggestion of the complexities to come. Instead, it appears that director Felix Barrett wants to keep things upbeat and light between Lou and James until the creepy stuff unfolds; given what does unfold, however, that seems like a limited directorial choice.

As Carolanne, Shannon Cochran gets to extend her range from doting and intrusive to insistently creepy and does a very good job of pulling that off. In her brief appearance as the medium, Andrea Syglowski manages to set the seance scene creepily enough, but why she eventually reacts as she does is not given enough explanation.

All in all, the best parts of the show are the illusions, which are indeed magical. The narrative, overall, leaves a lot of gaps, and, for those who like thoroughness and explanation, leaves a lot to be desired.

This play is inspired by the original film franchise of the same name pioneered in a strikingly profitable low-budget film in 2007. The story of the play has nothing much to do with the film franchise, but is driven by its general tilt towards horror and ghosts. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the whole film enterprise is how popular it was, and how it emerged as a brilliant commercial success starting from virtually no budget. (Much the same had been the case with its iconic predecessor The Blair Witch Project (1999), which cost nothing and made tons of money.) Interestingly, the pioneer of the Paranormal series, Oren Pell, left filmmaking some years after making his fortune. The current stage production seems intent on tapping into the same fascination with spookiness that made Pell his millions.

Extra info: contains spoilers

It seems that Lou has all kinds of unexplained emotional issues and that James is perfectly normal. He doesn’t believe in all the spooky stuff until things get really weird. In addition to weird sounds and slamming doors, there is one point at which Lou is talking with James and standing over the sink, and then all of a sudden, she’s upstairs and the robe she was wearing while standing over the sink collapses with nobody in it. Whoa!

When Etheline the medium comes, she goes through all sorts of stuff and appears to get Lou’s dead mother on the line. But then, all of a sudden, things start flying and doors slam and Etheline runs out of the house screaming that someone is going to die. This doesn’t seem like a very professional response by someone whose job is to contact the world beyond, but there it is.

Now things get really strange. Some weird numbers show up in the extra room upstairs and James sets about to try to decode them as some sort of a clue to what is going on. Carolanne gets on a Facetime phone call with James and instead of badgering him about when he and Lou will have children, she denounces James as morally corrupt and unsuitable for parenthood. Huh?

After this episode, Lou tells James that she intentionally set a fire to kill her parents, and James tells Lou about an occurrence from years before in which he was driving and ran over a little girl but fled the scene.

Carolanne gets on the Facetime phone again and tells James to answer the door, and she suddenly appears there. Soon she is scraping her face, and transforming into some sort of a spirit that disappears in a poof.

Lou and James are left alone, and after a little while, Lou declares something about how James’ wife might feel. What?

It now turns out that Lou, or who we have thought was Lou, has been inhabited by the spirit of the girl James ran over. The ghost lets James know that the strange numbers he has been trying to decode are the license plate numbers of the car he was driving when he killed the little girl. James opens the door and runs out and is killed instantly by a car.

All of this is indeed spooky, especially the part where Lou indicates that she’s really the little girl, but there’s not much explanation for much of this. How long has Lou been inhabited by the spirit of the girl? Is there a real Lou at all, ever? Carolanne is inhabited by the girl’s spirit as well, but for how long? Is the Carolanne who shows up at the house the real Carolanne or some spooky manifestation initiated by the ghost of the girl?

Is the story of Lou’s killing her parents real, and, if so, why isn’t she taken to task for her actions? Why is James the one to get the retribution and not Lou? Is Lou ever real or just intermittently inhabited by the dead girl’s ghost?

There are lots of outstanding questions which makes for a story that is more suggestive and evocative than coherent. Nonetheless, the moments of the spookiness – when Carolanne disappears and when Lou’s empty bathrobe collapses – and when Lou says that she is not really Lou at all but the little girl – are indeed creepy. But creepy with a bit more coherence would have been better, and a bit more depiction of psychologically compromised characters earlier on would have made sense.

– BADMan (aka Charles Munitz)

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