Press and Full Reviews

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One Man Verses Unspeakable Terrors – Ed Fortune 2011

http://edfortune.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/one-man-versus-unspeakable-terrors/

If you’re a geek (or at least claim to be one) chances are that you’ll have read (or have claimed to have read) the HP Lovecraft short story The Call of Cthullhu. It’s a tale that defined an entire sub-genre of creepy, existential horror, and has inspired a great many creative types to come up with music, poetry, comic books and games. What you rarely see is the story brought to stage or screen. After all, a tale about madness and lurking horror isn’t easy to pull off, and all too often, theatre and stage productions settle for a miserable compromise that is ‘inspired by the works of HP Lovecraft’ rather than getting on with the tricky task of telling the classic yarn in such a way that you get the same tingle of fear the original prose evokes.
So it was with a no small amount of excitement1 that I went to see Michael Sabbaton’s one man production of The Call of Cthullhu at the Lowry this Halloween. Sabbaton has taken the simplest of approaches to the story; it’s him, a chair, a trunk and a box, and as fans of horror stories know, one should never open the box. With the clever use of sound, smoke and lighting, the viewer is transported to Lovecraft Country, a place filled with madness, dread and fear. Sabbaton plays a variety of characters from the story, each one evoking the feeling of creeping darkness and inevitable insanity that one demands from a play named The Call of Cthullhu. The performance is remarkable and extremely well done, and it’s always interesting to hear someone pronounce “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn”1 without irony or geeky self-referencing (and instead, making it sound like the ravings of the damned.) Part of the reason it works so well is because it’s simply one man, with many faces. A more complicated production would have detracted from the simple horror required to tell the story, and instead what we get is a strong lesson in story telling. The show is also quite short, it’s 50 minutes long, and well worth your time. The website for the show, promises further tour dates, so it’s worth a look to see if it’ll be near you sometime soon.

Ed Fortune 2011

The Public Reviews

http://www.thepublicreviews.com/the-call-of-cthulhu-the-lowry-salford/

First written in 1926 and published in pulp magazines in America, H.P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu has been re-imagined for the stage in an hour-long one-man show.
As it’s Halloween, the spooky and distorted sound-scape and smoke wafting through the space means the atmosphere is pitched somewhere between excitement and terror.
The adaptation, devised, adapted and performed by Michael Sabbatton opens with a lone figure on stage. This is Francis Wayland Thurston, custodian of the box which has destroyed and frightened. Here he begins the strange tale of Cthulhu and the curse which has brought destruction to many before him. It’s a compelling opening to a truly classic tale.
Sabbatton, with some degree of expertise, takes on the roles of those men who have come into contact with the curse; Detective John Legrasse, Henry Anthony Wilcox, Old Castro and Thurston. He handles the transitions between characters well and only occasionally does it become a slight confusion. Sabbatton’s performance is astonishing. He works hard up there and puts his whole into the piece. There’s no denying this is a passionate and gifted actor. However, the choice to not have another eye cast over the piece may be why at some points, there were strange acting decisions and clumsy scene changes but these are minor issues which could be ironed out. The lighting and sound production on the show is par excellence and, as in all good horrors, adds to the creepy shock. At the top of the show, Thurston says, ‘I have seen things no man should see’. Fortunately, this show isn’t one of them. If you’re a fan of horror, it should be top of your list.

Sally Cinnamon 2011

The British Theatre Guide

http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/otherresources/fringe/fringe10-5.htm

Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness, so what better way to reinterpret H P Lovecraft's classic horror story than as a dramatic monologue? The style allows the indescribable horrors of the ancient god Cthulhu and his sunken citadel, R'lyeh, sensibly to remain unrepresented except as oblique hints and references, subtly sketching silhouettes and squamous details in the audience's imaginations – just as Lovecraft's story does. In portraying five very different men each driven mad by forbidden knowledge, Michael Sabbaton cycles from commanding through unsettling all the way to full-on disturbing, but is never short of captivating. Fog, dingy lighting and a superb soundscape – incorporating off-kilter alien rumblings and the many moods of water, from gentle rain to raging surf – conjure an atmosphere of oppressive, gloomy, creeping dread. Anyone not acquainted with Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos will have to work hard to keep up with the plot, which writhes and recurves through a disjointed series of flashbacks and one-sided conversations. But as a meditation on madness and the impossibility of un-learning knowledge, however unpleasant – that is, as an attempt to capture the essence of the source material – The Call of Cthulhu is potent indeed.

Matt Boothman 2010

The Edinburgh Guide.com

http://www.edinburghguide.com/festival/2010/thecallofcthulhureview-6077

H P Lovecraft was a horror/fantasy writer of some repute. Although not mainstream even in his own genre he did create a cult following and his books still have a simmering demand. The lovely Hill Street Theatre hosts Michael Sabbaton’s ‘Call of Cthulhu’. I suspect that if you’re not a Lovecraft fan Cthulhu will mean nothing to you. Cthulhu is an ancient god who slumbers beneath the sea in R’lyeh. He has been waiting millennia for the configuration of the stars to release him from his slumbers. But while he sleeps he enters the minds of mortals and draws them to him. What we see during the course of the 50 minutes are a series of characters either hunting down the followers of this ancient sect or embroiled in its insidious schemings. A remarkable soundtrack designed and created by Rob Speight adds layer on top of layer of atmosphere and foreboding and the lighting that never gets above dim adds another nerve jangling element into the mix. The delivery of this one man show is through a series of vignettes sometimes presenting interactions played between two characters, one after the other rather than concurrently. This approach occasionally jarred for me and felt pedestrian in an otherwise well paced piece of work. The arc of the narrative was not always clear, who were we watching what were we talking about, where were we know? These were all questions I would rather not have had to try and work out while watching this formidable actor taken on the different persona and create such a claustrophobic and horror laden atmosphere. His characterisations and capture of a moment were wonderful. This show is an amazing attempt to bring the dreadful awe of the Cthulhu mythos onto the stage - Michael Sabbaton has done a remarkable job.

Gary Platt 2010

The List

http://edinburghfestival.list.co.uk/event/10004433-the-call-of-cthulhu/

HP Lovecraft’s most famous work is brought to the stage in this one-man show from Michael Sabbaton. Lovecraft’s tales of horror were always about unknown evils lurking in the shadows, tendrils of madness creeping into the consciousness of his protagonists, and Sabbaton perfectly captures this descent into insanity as he switches between characters, hinting at great and hideous wickedness as elder gods rise from the depths.

Henry Northmore 2010

Edinburgh Spotlight.com

http://www.edinburghspotlight.com/2010/08/fringe-review-call-of-cthulhu-remarkable-arts-hill-street/

In his house, dead Cthulhu lies dreaming…
H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu tales are cult horror classics, and here actor Michael Sabbaton presents his solo interpretation of one of Lovecraft’s short stories of madness and creeping dread. The set is simple: a chair, and a mysterious box sitting on a table, filled with something unspeakable and given provenance by the piece’s starkly effective lighting. Playing multiple roles, Sabbaton presents the desparation, fear and insanity of the tale’s unfortunate characters; this does get a little confusing at times, as the action switches from person to person quickly and without much in the way of introduction. His performance is strong and well-delivered, however, and the 50-minute performance holds the attention throughout. Sound design is particularly effective in Call of Cthulhu, with deep, foreboding sounds of menace creating the perfect mood of unspeakable things and nameless horror. And it is to Sabbaton’s credit that he pitches his performance just the right side of melodrama, and creates a memorable piece that lingers after the lights go up.

Keith D 2010

The Stage 2010

http://ed.thestage.co.uk/reviews/920

Atmosphere is all in Michael Sabbaton's adaptation of H P Lovecraft's tales of a mythical entity called Cthulhu. It is, as Sabbaton allows his audience to understand by small degrees, slumbering beneath the ocean and its terror lives on in a small box, discovered amongst a dead man's possessions by his nephew. Sabbaton eschews narration, relying on smoke and sound to set the scene – and his five characters' actions and words to bring the story out of the dark. We see the uncle, an anthropologist to whom an artist brings a sculpture of clay he created in a nightmare and a Louisiana sheriff who captures a occultist who has been making human sacrifices to Cthulhu in the swamps. Despite all of Sabbaton's strong creation of intense character, the overall result is mild. There is so much obfuscation that, although uncle, nephew, artist, lawman and occultist are clearly defined, you can't really work out how the fear has affected them or what it is doing in the box. Nor how the artist and occultist's well-created internal terror translated to their observers: the anthropologist and lawman. Or, most crucially, the nephew. ?Without such understanding, this is just a noisy succession of horror book cliches, told as if the audience were on a cheap carney ride.

Thom Dibdin 2010

The Scotsman

http://www.edinburgh-festivals.com/viewreview.aspx?id=2226

Based on the short story of the same name by HP Lovecraft, this one-man show captures a dark and eerie mood through some great uses of sound and lighting, as well as an arresting performance from Michael Sabbaton. Unfortunately, the story isn't really brought out and we're left with a series of scenes that are well executed but difficult to piece together. As a result, the sinister mood starts to lose its effect and while Sabbaton is a performer worth seeing, it feels like his skills are let down by this adaptation.

Sally Stott 2010

Fest Mag

http://www.festmag.co.uk/reviews/25-the_call_cthulhu

The key element in telling a tale of psychological horror is to bind the audience into the drama as tightly as possible. Unfortunately, this H.P. Lovecraft adaption threatens to share its pain and anguish, but never quite connects.
Admittedly, this is not all Michael Sabbaton’s fault. Sloppy technical work is partly to blame for constant breaks in the emotional link. A climactic gunshot rings out slightly too late and an anachronistic synthesiser invades the 1920s setting.
Playing a string of men who encounter the malevolent god, Cthulhu, Sabbaton portrays their descents into madness well, but doesn’t always succeed in making the characters captivating; it is often hard to care about their fates.

James Ellingworth 2010

Three Weeks 2010

http://threeweeks.co.uk/emailers/100827.html

I was almost choked by an over-enthusiastic smoke machine whilst entering the interior of the Hill Street Theatre. This, combined with sinister lighting and a startling soundtrack immediately set the mood for this gripping retelling of H.P. Lovecraft's classic short story. Working alone, Michael Sabbaton recreated the strange tale of a mysterious horror that is Cthulhu, a squid-like giant slumbering in an oozing green city. Sabbaton masterfully jumped through the several characters of the play, constructing a narrative of layered monologues and one-sided conversations that was at once movingly poetic and quietly terrifying. If anything, the piece was a little too dense and warrants either a second viewing or a perusal of the original text. A chilling, mesmerising adaptation.

Fortean Times

http://www.forteantimes.com/features/commentary/4309/a_fortean_at_the_fringe_2010.html

Not all of my Fringe choices involving Lovecraft have been successes. In fact, many have ranked as some of the worst theatre I have ever seen. Still, this one at least starts well – the only actor commits suicide. I suppose when you have the indescribable horror that is Cthulhu then there’s not much left for you in life. This show is a one-hander capably performed by Michael Sabbaton. A minimal stage set heightens the tension as Sabbaton – playing every character himself – tells the famous story of descent into inevitable suicide and madness. This is a suitably atmospheric show about how Cthulhu affected the lives of a number of people.

Definitely the best Lovecraft adaptation on the Fringe. Ever.

Gordon Rutter 2010

Erotic Review Magazine

http://www.eroticreviewmagazine.com/content/fringe-quickies-call-cthulhu

This one-man show fully captures the atmosphere of paranoid despair and 1920s Americana that define H.P. Lovecraft’s classic tale of unspeakable horror. Emerging in the midst of a small, smoke-filled stage and a Lynchian noise texture, Sabbaton plays a disturbed artist, a hard-boiled cop, a skeptical archaeologist and a deranged cult leader with realistic verve and unaffected pathos. While the unsettling ambience is masterful, Lovecraft’s slow plot does not translate well to the stage, lacking pace and drama. Nevertheless, this is engaging, unsettling entertainment, and a rare opportunity to learn how to pronounce the exotic vocabulary of the Cthulhu mythos.

C.J. Lazarett 2010

Audience Blogs/Reviews...

Posted by Jobonko on Yog-sothoth.com 2010

My girlfriend and I saw this on August 8 while we were on vacation in Edinburgh. I didn't have internet connection enough to post a review until just now, so here you go:

The play, by and starring Michael Sabbaton, is a telling of the original HPL story from the viewpoint of the grandson of Professor Angell. He has come to inherit his grandfather's notes and the Horror in Clay. The latter item he keeps in an ornate box which occupies downstage right and without ever changing, interacts with the narrator quite a bit throughout the play.

To tell the story through the disparate voices of Henry Wilcox, Professor Angell, John Legrasse, and even Castro, Sabbaton's narrator becomes "possessed," becoming the character. Overall the play was very entertaining. The use of atmospheric lighting, a fog machine, and eerie music worked very well to create a sense of the weird. The venue itself was well-suited to the performance; being small and close helped give the play some power. Sabbaton's performance as each of the characters was strong. Each character has a unique accent and prop to help differentiate him from other characters.

The transitions between characters did not always work as well, though. Often these transitions were descents into madness, beginning with one character's breakdown, a quick fade of the lights, and resuming with another character on stage. Sometimes it was unclear where the first character ended and the next began. In terms of holding to the original story, Sabbaton's play does very well. His characters play their parts and reveal the story without simply reciting HPL's words. Where Sabbaton has written his own monologues and descriptions, he's done an excellent job holding to the Lovecraftian writing style.

Oh. And he prounounced the unpronounceable phrase "F'nglui..." as well as can be expected for a human tongue.

I'd give the play a solid 4 Elder Signs (Star) out of 5...I highly recommend seeing the play.

Posted by Dave Wood on Meetup.com 2010

Better than I thought it would be. Not sure if the ukulele final scene was in Lovecraft's books though. I'll have to get around to reading him. Would have been more enjoyable without the HUGE Kiwi in front of me rustling in his bag several times during the performance in an intimate theatre. Grrr. Otherwise the performer was really good and carried the audience with him through different character changes and an unfamiliar horror mythos. If you're a fan of horror or ukuleles it's worth checking out. :-) ”

Posted by None such house on nonesuchhouse.livejournal.com 2010

http://nonesuchhouse.livejournal.com/57904.html

Michael Sabbaton’s one man performance of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu is to be applauded.

Claustrophobic, intense, driven and suitably dark it makes excellent use of a lurking horror soundtrack, dry ice swirling mist into the audience and simple lighting of the most effective kind, even the venue you enter seems to fit, with it’s early 1900’s renovation and its Masonic ephemera.

The way the characters interact, one interviewing another or a meeting or desperate soliloquy, one after the other is well planned out and a template that could work well with many a ghostly tale, I can certainly see Sabbaton making a good Harker, Renfield and Van Helsing as this format lends to the tale delivered by correspondence, interview or recording of events.

Braver by far to try this mythos and include the second cast member on stage, a box, often lit green, alone on a table, forever haunting the main protagonist.

As someone well immersed in the Cthulhu Mythos, it is hard for me to know what a new comer to it might make of this adaptation, I feel there might just be a case for an extension to one scene, one that examines the press cuttings of odd events, more than a simple reference to them, something to draw the events portrayed, discussed or remembered, together.

Out of simple curiosity of the effect, I would be intrigued to see a slightly larger scale production of this, perhaps a sculptor working on the statue in the background, but then, as the horror of the mind is so much greater than anything we can manufacture, I think this was the right path to take.

My slight bugbear, an extended period from closed doors to the start of the play, the music and mist had me under its spell, but the wait was too long and the spell broken by the time we started and this left Sabbaton the task of re-weaving it.

Overall a fine piece of theatre, one that might struggle to get far beyond its fervent source material fans as an audience, but one that deserves to.

Posted on Mylife99’s web blog on mylife99.wordpress.com 2010

http://mylife99.wordpress.com/2010/08/page/2/

Today I went out to see a play in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The play was a stage version of The Call of Cthulhu based on the story by H. P. Lovecraft. The story is set in the 1920s and involves a man whose uncle, a professor, died in mysterious circumstances and pieces together several accounts from a artist, a Louisiana police inspector and a sailor of bizarre dreams, vicious secret cults and other events which tell of the emergence of a grotesque monster living in a submerged city.

The play consisted of one actor on a bare stage full of smoke and strange lighting playing five characters each delivering his own story in monologues. There is also music and the sound of water which moves from peaceful rainfall to a roaring tempest. It was a good play and often genuinely scary, although it would be kind of hard to follow if you don’t already know the story.

Posted by Tychy on http://tychy.wordpress.com 2010

http://tychy.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/tychy-the-fringe-the-call-of-cthulhu/

One of the benefits of attending Michael Sabbaton’s “The Call of Cthulhu” is that I will be finally able to say “cthulhu,” which neither I nor the girl at the box office could pronounce. Having now learned how to say this word (you should in fact use more effort than care), I think that I will keep it to myself.

I severely doubt that Cthulhu would materialise in Edinburgh’s affluent and over-civilised New Town. The Hill Street theatre is a pleasant spot, but the city possesses much darker and grimier regions in which H. P. Lovecraft’s cosmic squid imp could appear with a greater degree of comfort. If Lovecraft had himself visited Edinburgh, he would have unquestionably frequented the dank Cowgate. But Sabbaton’s show compensates for the handicap of establishing itself in the wrong half of Edinburgh (for historians of literary horror, the symbolism is important), by evoking some genuine Lovecraftian atmosphere with its awesome soundscaping. The introductory audio plunges us into Lovecraft’s nightmares with far greater success than his own prose ever could. One trembles deliciously before the suggestion of underwater abysses and desolate industrial plants and a feeling of being overwhelmed by something vast and empty and indifferent.

Sabbaton’s performance will have to be good to match the power of this introduction, and it is largely – a visceral, very physical impression of madness, if at times a little too close to becoming corny, which recalls St Anthony in the hands of Bosch and Grunewald. Sabbaton’s New York accents are impeccable, and his narratives shake some of the rigor mortis out of Lovecraft’s prose.

Although undeniably a unique, ambitious, and profoundly influential author, Lovecraft did incalculable damage to horror fiction in the long term by associating it with bad writing. One advantage of putting “Cthulhu” on stage is the chance to bypass Lovecraft’s execrable prose, whilst retaining the good things in his fiction, which is principally the atmosphere. On the question of Lovecraft’s influence, this show would have benefited from putting “Cthulhu” in a little context, possibly via a programme. To one unfamiliar with Lovecraft, this show might have looked like an unremarkable work of science fiction, and to understand its significance you need to know that “Cthulhu” was written in 1927!

Sabbaton offers a truncated “Cthulhu,” which favours dwelling upon the second, and most creepiest, passage of the story – Inspector Legrasse’s journey into the voodoo swamps – whilst not quite finding the courage to portray the ending to Lovecraft’s tale, in which Cthulhu is unleashed apocalyptically before sustaining a temporary defeat. In fairness, Sabbaton states that he wanted to produce “an adaptation and not a replication,” and he certainly conveys the atmosphere of Lovecraft’s story with great aplomb, but important points in the tale, such as Professor Angell’s death or Johansen’s adventure, flit by in passing, leading to more darkness in the audience than perhaps even Lovecraft had intended. Nevertheless, whatever my quibbles, this is a fine and valuable interpretation of Lovecraft’s story.

[The trailer is worth a look at. Ed.]

Audience Reviews Posted around the Web

Daniel Yates 2011:

It’s not often that myself and my wife get out to see a show, but an exception was made once I was informed of an upcoming, one night/one man only play of H.P Lovecraft’s definitive work The Call of Cthulhu. Having been an avid reader of Lovecraft for many years I was eager to see something actually depicting his work rather than simply inspired by or based upon.
Michael Sabbaton had his work cut out trying to depict five of the stories main characters all by himself but he managed to pull it off very well. The show did in all honesty require the viewer to have a reasonable understanding of the characters ahead of time for I found myself explaining a few details of the characters to my wife afterwards. That aside the depiction of the various levels of insanity within the characters was superb, with the character of Castro in particular leaving me on the edge of my seat.
It was very clear that a lot of effort had gone into the minimal props used, the soundscape was amazingly appropriate adding to the smoky, green atmosphere that was already there to greet us as we walked into the studio. This all came together into a show that made an hour seem like mere minutes, the captivation held so well that the ending hit like a brick to the head, a superb finale to the madness we just witnessed.
If you get the opportunity to see this show I cannot recommend it enough, it is a fantastic, chthonic experience in madness.

Richard Partridge-Hicks 2010:

Being a long time reader of the works of H.P. Lovecraft I was very impressed with how incredibly well this classic work was performed. The lighting, smoke & use of props, coupled with the small set and oppressive atmosphere created a truly unforgettable experience. Michael Sabbaton's acting is simple superb, and the skill with which he shows the transition between multiple characters with a change of expression, tone or prop is awe-inspiring. Suffice to say I saw this yesterday, on the penultimate night of its showing, and I am going again tonight. I would be very pleased to see this show continued and would thoroughly recommend it.

Neil Davidson 2010:

Quite well done - good use of smoke and lighting to add atmosphere.

David Crabbe 2010:

Excellent and chilling portrayal of the descent into madness brought about by discovering secrets that mankind was not meant to know. Recommended.

Andrew Ramage 2010:

Very enjoyable! At first the small, compact theatre made you very aware of the lighting and other stage props but by the end all you noticed was Michael Sabbaton. A gripping tale well acted! 4 stars.

Sites and Other Journalism Mentioning Cthulhu

http://unfilmable.blogspot.com/2010/08/one-mans-descent-into-madness.html

http://www.yog-sothoth.com/threads/18838-quot-The-Call-of-Cthulhu-quot-at-the-Edinburgh-Festival

http://suvudu.com/2010/08/lovecrafts-the-call-of-cthulhu-adapted-for-one-man-show.html

http://www.filmhorror.com/index.php?option=com_search&searchword=lovecraft

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