By Keri O’Shea
The literary works of HP Lovecraft have long been a source of temptation for horror filmmakers keen to take on the challenge of rendering visible all of those unspeakable, unknowable and unnameable terrors. It’s something of an irony, given that Lovecraft himself wasn’t keen on the silver screen as a medium, and the resulting works have certainly long been variable; but what about theatre? Considering the close focus on the rupturing sanity of so many of his main characters, and their introspective struggles to discuss their descent prior to succumbing forever, it turns out that the dramatic monologue form is a superb mid-point between printed pages and last words – provided it’s well-handled and sensitively done. This is certainly the case in Michael Sabbaton’s one-man show The Temple, based on the 1920 Lovecraft story of the same name.
As with the story, The Temple focuses on the last remaining crewman of a German U-Boat – now stranded on the ocean floor, seemingly hopelessly, with all other crew dead. In our monologue, the captain, one Altberg, is first seen awakening from a nightmare in the oxygen-depleted ship. Thereafter, he begins to recount the incredible events which brought him to this point; a proud, haughty man yet, he describes the circumstances which led to his vessel successfully sinking a British cargo ship and later, how they resurfaced to observe what was left of her. Amongst the debris, he and his men found a body, deceased but still somehow clinging to a rail. Around the neck of this man – whom Altberg describes at this early stage in his monologue as still appearing ‘beautiful’ – he and his second in command, Klenze, find a strange, carved amulet. Intrigued, they steal it.
This is a Lovecraft tale, and therefore what follows relates, as so often, to the chaos which reaches out to touch anyone who gets a glimpse of that vast, ancient world outside of their narrow understanding. Once the amulet is on board, the crew begin to go insane, begin to die; Altberg describes how he responded to this unruly behaviour, attempting to discipline his men’s irrational assertions of ‘dead sailors’ following the vessel, but it’s no use as the ship is variously damaged, then sabotaged, before drifting downwards into the sea, now unable to ever resurface. Ever the military man, Altberg even kills those who grow mutinous; soon, it is only him and Klenze left, with his officer growing more and more deliriously drawn to a mysterious entity out there in the depths…and so, we are left with the captain, now locked in a frenzied debate with himself. Is he, too, insane? Have conditions on the ship been responsible for his mental decline – or is there something to the irresistible thoughts of ‘Father Dagon, Mother Hydra’ which now plague him?
A suitably minimalist stage, with low lighting and the economical use of sound, Sabbaton soon proves himself a master at invoking the audience’s imagination. This is clearly a challenging role (in which parts of which are spoken in the German language of the characters) but he paces his performance very well, although I was most personally engaged by the more low-key, quietly-intoned sections, which reminded me of the most hair-raising moments of a good old fashioned ghost story. I know a gripping monologue needs to do more than this, however, and considering Sabbaton/Altberg is a man whose situation at the time of speaking is even more terrible even than we first imagine, he conveys the encroaching madness of an arrogant man superbly. If anything, this adaptation for the monologue format makes the conclusion of the story more effective still as horror, and yes, the way he eventually allows his mind to ‘correlate its contents’ manages to be disturbing.
Lovecraft wrote about the perils of suspending one’s disbelief – of allowing knowledge too great for the human mind to seep into it, deranging and degenerating it. It’s sort of ironic, then, that one of the finest ways to appreciate his stories turns out to be due to suspending one’s disbelief to enjoy a talented actor giving voice to the Lovecraftian imagination. A welcome addition to this year’s Abertoir, I’d strongly recommend fans of the author or just of the genre to seek this show out. The evident care and work which has gone into the adaptation pays dividends.