Review: ‘Someone Else’s House’ an intense, interactive ghost story from TheaterWorks

From its lowkey Zoom-at-home opening to its shocking sudden ending, the TheaterWorks’ presentation of Jared Mezzocchi’s “Someone Else’s House” leaves you with a sustained chill that’s hard to shake.

This is a deceptively low tech-seeming show that shares a lot of its scare tactics with psychological dramas like “The Blair Witch Project.” It emanates from a lone person sitting in a room dimly lit by candles and lamps.

In “Someone Else’s House,” Mezzocchi portrays himself, excitedly telling a story that he says his family actually experienced, of a haunting in the very house from which he is Zooming in rural New Hampshire.

“I am here to tell you a true story,” he says calmly, later adding with similar matter-of-factness that “I am a member of a family with a house that is undeniably haunted” and “This is a trauma that lives deep in my brother’s bones. I’m not sensationalizing this. This actually happened to people that I love.”

This is a lived-in dramatic experience that could never be replicated by simply telling the story on a stage. The echoey nature of Zoom calls adds a suitably sinister air to the show. Mezzocchi tells the viewers to light candles near them as they watch. Each performance is done live; unlike a lot of virtual shows, it doesn’t shift to an on-demand recorded version later in the run. It’s happening, and it’s haunting.

After a slow build of meeting the small audience (all of whom we see as guests on the Zoom meeting), Mezzocchi settles naturally into the storytelling. As he gets more into it, he shows off the big books and town documents he found while researching whether the local legends he’d heard were true.

For a time, “Someone Else’s House” gets more scholarly than scary. We are shown real estate ads and family trees. The show bogs down with some of the audience participation stuff, when Mezzocchi asks folks to share information from packets that TheaterWorks has mailed to their homes.

But it’s a wind-up. The paperwork, chronicling deaths and disasters, adds credibility to Mezzocchi’s sense of gloom and doom pervading the house. Strange people lived there, strange things happened and may still be happening.

Sometimes other voices are added to the story. Mezzocchi recreates remembered dialogue between his father and brother (”Is everything all right?” “Dad, there’s something wrong with the house”). We hear recordings of his mother verifying mysterious happenings in the house. Mostly it’s Mezzocchi talking in a gentle voice, but occasionally he’ll act out something, like scratching away a creepy-crawling feeling on his skin. After a while, he’s moving furniture about or sitting on an attic floor.

Lifting a chair may not sound very scary. But the timeworn phrase “Get out of the house!” applies here. The longer Mezzocchi hangs out, sharing his thoughts, the more the suspense builds.

If you saw the dizzying multimedia climax of “Russian Troll Farm,” which Mezzocchi co-directed with Elizabeth Williamson (the former Hartford Stage associate artistic director who is credited as creative producer on “Someone Else’s House”), you know the power of the virtual tools he has at his disposal. He also has a great collaborator in director Margaret Bordelon, who was part of a few valuable theater experiments herself when she attended the Yale (now Geffen) School of Drama a few years ago.

The tale is clearly and crisply told. The visuals are direct and focused. If anything (or anyone) wanders, it’s for a purpose.

TheaterWorks Hartford has arranged in-person showings of “Someone Else’s House” at its usual performance space at 233 Pearl St. The stage has been used for some of TheaterWorks’ previous virtual shows, but the auditorium has been dormant since March of last year. According to the theater, over a third of ticket buyers are opting for the “live” experience of watching Mezzocchi’s livestream in a theater seat with other people around them.

It’s fun to share a good scare, but it’s hard to imagine a creepier way of accessing “Someone Else’s House” than in the privacy of your own home. Its final moments are jarring and hard to shake. If you go straight to bed after this casually intense hour of interactive virtual spooky theater, expect “Someone Else’s House” to invade your dreams.

“Someone Else’s House” runs through Oct. 31. Virtual performances (each of them live) are Tuesday through Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at noon and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 8 p.m. TheaterWorks is also holding in-person viewing parties in its 233 Pearl St. space Oct. 22-24 and 29-31 at 8 p.m. $45-$60. twhartford.org.

Christopher Arnott can be reached at carnott@courant.com.