Bygone Theatre’s production of The Rear Window; written and directed by Emily Dix, opened at Hart House Theatre on Friday night.  It riffs off the Hitchcock film, or rather its source material, but really doesn’t manage to create a sense of menace or foreboding that would make such an adaptation worthwhile.

The basic plot is that a photo-journalist; LB Jefferies, is stuck in his New York apartment with a broken leg.  Basically he’s bored and frustrated and is doing painkillers and whiskey on an epic scale while abusing his long suffering girlfriend and the office gofer and spying on the neighbours.  One night he sees, or more likely thinks he sees, one of the neighbours; Lars Thorvald, murder his wife.  Incoherent drunken calls to his friend in the police department and to the news desk at his paper pretty much destroy any credibility he has but he’s convinced and bullies girlfriend and gofer into helping with his “enquiries”. When these lead nowhere he gets increasingly abusive and paranoid and takes multiple steps to “out” Thorvald.  This finally leads to actual tragedy but by then it’s hard to care.

Jefferies is played by Oliver Georgiou who seems to have decided to play James Stewart playing Jefferies so his vocal delivery is an often incomprehensible drawl but at least he creates a character; albeit perhaps one of Tennessee Williams’ less attractive drunks.  The rest of the cast seem to be drawn straight out of a 1950s TV soap.  I don’t think the problem with the girlfriend; Lena Hall, played by Kate McArthur is the acting.  It’s rather that she’s the cut-out 1950s woman looking after “her man” even when he’s utterly vile to her.  The sidekick played by Cayne Kitagawa suffers from a similar problem.

The most interesting thing about the show is how very effective use is made of relatively low tech projection technology.  Jefferies apartment is surrounded by the neighbours’ windows and what goes on behind them is mostly conveyed by live projections; ie there are off stage actors being filmed live with the result projected onto “window” screens.  It’s pretty cool.  The only apartment that gets direct treatment is the Thorvalds’.  Elsewhere we just get glimpses of a newly married couple and a dancing girl and her male admirers but it’s a lot less exciting than that might suggest.

All in all, what might work as a suspense thriller is neither suspenseful or thrilling which makes it rather disappointing.

The Rear Window runs at hart House Theatre until May 31st.