Shadow play: Daniel Burke as The Actor in The Woman In Black. Picture: Mark Douet
FIRST staged in a pub setting in 1987 by the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, Stephen Mallatratt’s adaptation of Susan Hill’s ghost story The Woman In Black returns tonight to the Grand Opera House, York, two years to the month since its last visit.
Elderly lawyer Arthur Kipps (played by John Mackay) is obsessed with a curse he believes was cast over his family by the spectre of a “Woman in Black” 50 years ago. Whereupon he engages a sceptical young actor (Daniel Burke’s The Actor) to help him tell his terrifying story and exorcise the fear that grips his soul, but as they delve into his past, the boundaries between fiction and reality begin to blur.
“It will be my first time performing in York,” says Daniel. “Though I did come up here in 2019 to rehearse with Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre in a big tent in a shopping-centre car park [more precisely the specially constructed rehearsal village at the York Designer Outlet, where eight productions were knocked into shape].
“I went down to Blenheim Palace for the summer to play Paris in Romeo And Juliet and multi-rolled a few smaller roles in Richard III.”
Daniel Burke’s The Actor with John Mackay’s Arthur Kipps in The Woman In Black. Picture: Mark Douet
Daniel first auditioned for The Woman In Black a couple of years ago. “It didn’t go my way but Robin [director Robin Herford] kept me in mind,” he says. “I’d first auditioned with a self-tape, but this time I auditioned in person with Robin last June, when I was doing a production of The Girl On The Train (which came to Sheffield Lyceum Theatre and later Leeds Grand Theatre).
“The contract was rubber-stamped in mid-June, but I had to miss the first week of rehearsals when I was finishing the tour, so it was only three weeks for me, four for John, with the assistant director [Antony Eden] filling in for me in the first week.
“He’s worked with Robin for many years and is as familiar with the play as Robin is – he’s played both parts and he’s directing a tour that’s happening in the USA this year.”
Three weeks may look a short lead-in to a two-hander, but Daniel says: “By the time we got to the end of my third week with John, we’d reached the point where we felt we really needed an audience.”
The tour opened at the Storyhouse, in Chester, in late-September last year for an itinerary that resumed after a Christmas break at Darlington Hippodrome last week.
“I hadn’t ever seen the play, and John hadn’t either, so I think Robin was pleased to work with two actors who were completely fresh to it,” says Daniel. “He knows it so well from directing it and from playing both characters numerous times that he found it refreshing to have actors new to the story as we asked new questions that Robin wouldn’t have heard before.
“Our production has developed really well; John is a lovely man to work with and he’s a very funny man too. It’s such an intense piece, where it’s beneficial if you can find some light to bring into the room.
“We found our rhythm organically on tour, and that’s especially important to my character, as he’s trying to convince Kipps to go with his idea, but once it gets rolling, you can really go along for the ride.”
Fright night: The Actor (Daniel Burke) in The Woman In Black. Picture: Mark Douet
Daniel has thrived on the experience of putting a production together with such an experienced director. “Robin was very open to our suggestions. He had his ideas of what direction he wanted to go, but then sometimes you could have an idea for a scene or you might ask about the logic of why a character was doing something, when every so often you would need clarification, and we would try new ideas, and if they worked, he would incorporate them.”
In creating his version of The Actor, “Robin led me down the line of him being quite a successful young actor, who had played the young romantic leads that were available to him,” says Daniel.
“Robin steered me to go that way, and that was my instinct as well because The Actor has a lot of positive energy, thinks on his feet and sees Arthur as someone he can help but also maybe as one of the trickiest characters he’s had to deal with, but he sees that as a challenge rather than as a problem.”
The Woman In Black is proving as enjoyable to perform as Daniel could have wished. “It’s a good challenge and it’s very enjoyable, and when it’s a two-hander you can’t pop to your dressing room for a breather, so the audience is really getting its money’s worth. I’ve done other rewarding roles, but this is the one where you’re involved all the time,” he says.
Daniel Burke (The Actor) in an enlightening moment in The Woman In Black. Picture: Mark Douet
“There’s also a big old human element to it, as it’s a sad story, not only for Arthur but also for the ghost, the Woman in Black, Jennet Humfrye, and you hope that the audience will walk away afterwards feeling sympathetic for Jennet as well as for Arthur.
“There was this attitude towards women who were pregnant out of wedlock and found themselves abandoned by family, and on top of that losing a child, and then that spirals into madness. I think that makes a ghost story better than if it’s just a horrible, evil spirit.
“It adds a layer of complexity to the story that become a lot more effective and satisfying, both for the audience and the actors playing it.”
PW Productions present The Woman In Black, Grand Opera House, York, tonight to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Thursday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Daniel Burke
Daniel Burke: back story
DANIEL’S theatre credits include UK Tour of The Girl On The Train, Troilus And Cressida for
Royal Shakespeare Company, and Imperium Part I and Part II, for RSC and at Gielgud Theatre, West End, London.
Also appeared in Bang Bang at Exeter Northcutt Theatre and on UK tour; Romeo And Juliet and Richard III, for Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre, Blenheim Palace; Hamlet, Richard II and Romeo And Juliet for Guildford Shakespeare Company; The Comedy Of Errors, at Mercury Theatre, Colchester; Love All, Jermyn Street Theatre; A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Great Gatsby, Storyhouse’s Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre; The Circle, Theatre Royal Bath and UK Tour.
Television credits include The Witcher for Netflix and Lord Of The Rings Rings Of Power for Amazon Prime.