The season of the witch has arrived at the Bangor Opera House and oh what a delight it is.
Penobscot Theatre Company’s production of the one-woman show “Broomstick” is spooky and creepy but also mesmerizing.
A.J. Mooney reveals the witch’s humanity while divulging secrets about how she came to be the old lady living alone in a cottage in Appalachia that several children passed through. It is a memorable tour de force and multi-layered performance unlike Mooney’s previous turns on the Opera House stage.
Mooney has been a Penobscot Theatre company member for more than 20 years. She has starred in “Misery,” “Birthday Candles,” “August: Osage County,” the musical “The Full Monty,” “Trapped! A Lobster Tale,” and many more.
“Broomstick” was written by John Biguenet, a playwright and novelist based in New Orleans. The 90-minute one-act production is written in verse and was first performed in 2013 in New Jersey.
The play is written as a conversation between the Witch and a visitor whom she cared for as a child. There are cackling confessions about a tragic love affair, stories of when and how she developed her powers and how she’s used them over the years. It is not for children or the faint of heart.
Director Ben Layman uses every inch of the Opera House stage. Mooney is upstage, downstage, in doorways and a fireplace, on the floor and atop a table. She is almost never still, which gives the show a frenetic feel and matches the character’s emotional roller coaster ride into the past and back to the present.
Layman and Mooney, who have worked together many times, mine the script for every cackle, laugh, surprise and pathos. There is some ambiguity here too, as it’s just possible the Witch might be stretching the truth a mite.
The technical work by the design team — Michael DiMauro (lighting), Anna Kate Mason (costumes), Jess Ploszaj (set and props) and Ryan McGowan (sound) — is dazzlingly eye popping. Ploszaj, the company’s production manager, turned the “On Golden Pond” camp set into the witch’s cottage and filled it with dried herbs and flowers, a few children’s toys and a lot of stuff acquired over a lifetime. Theatergoers might recognize rooms in their own homes on stage.
While all the technical work is excellent, DiMauro’s complex lighting design is stunning. In the opening scene, the candles in Witch’s home light up as she walks by them. The Witch often is bathed in light that matches her moods and the kind of story she is telling: yellows for the sunshine and happiness or her youth and blues and reds for the tragedies she’s endured.
“Broomstick” is a fascinating 90 minutes of fun and gets the audience rethinking its opinion of witches from childhood. Gather your coven and get to the Opera House.
Penobscot Theatre Company’s production of “Broomstick” will be performed through Nov. 8 at the Bangor Opera House, 131 Main St. For information, visit penobscottheatre.org or call 207-942-3333.