Poor Staging Leads ‘Train’ Down the Wrong Track

Six people, for little apparent reason except that someone pulled the emergency cord on their train, are left at an isolated train station on a dismal night. They are told that they can’t stay in the waiting room because a ghost train comes by every year on this date. They insist on staying, and sure enough the ghost train roars by, leaving dead bodies in its wake.

Or are they dead? Regardless, Arnold Ridley’s 1931 melodrama, “Ghost Train,” at La Habra Depot Theatre certainly is. It is one of those illogical affairs that a Poverty Row Hollywood movie studio, numerous decades ago, would buy the rights to, and then have completely rewritten before shooting began. And it still would wind up at the bottom of a Saturday triple feature.

Director Christian P. Wolf’s inept staging does nothing to help this turkey. It’s the kind of play that might have a camp appeal with an exceptional cast and imaginative direction. But Wolf’s guidance is static and devoid of much insight into this faded genre. He leaves most of his cast struggling along at the performance level of those Grade Z flicks.

Little in the way of characterization is evident. Stephanie Dalton-Watson and Loren Charles Brown, as the Winthrops, a couple plagued by professional problems, and Paul Barger and Gypsy Montgomery-George, as the newlywed Murdocks, strive valiantly but to little avail in the face of the bad writing and lack of direction.

Cleta Cohen, as the starchy elderly spinster Miss Bourne, relies on a stereotypical caricature, and Stacy O’Grady does little more than shriek as an unbalanced young woman who is deathly afraid of the ghost train and who turns out to be the head of an international smuggling ring, for Pete’s sake.

*

The rest of the cast members speak their lines more or less competently, but Wolf’s lack of attention can be focused on the performance of Joseph Beck as a flighty bouncing ball of a red herring, who actually turns out to be a detective in charge of cornering Miss Shriek.

During others’ speeches, Beck commits the gravest sin an actor can by continuously adjusting his cuffs and lapel, and numerous times pulling out a handkerchief, which he waves grandly, laboriously mops his face with it and then studiously refolds it. It’s an old trick to attract attention and shows an unprofessional disrespect for fellow actors, for the production and for the audience.

* “Ghost Train,” La Habra Depot Theatre, 311 S. Euclid St., La Habra. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2:30 p.m. Ends Nov. 9. $8-$10. (310) 690-3321 or (310) 905-9625. Running time: 2 hours.

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Stephanie Dalton-Watson: Elsie Winthrop

Loren Charles Brown: Richard Winthrop

Paul Barger: Charles Murdock

Gypsy Montgomery-George: Peggy Murdock

Cleta Cohen: Miss Bourne

Stacy O’Grady: Julia Price

Joseph Beck: Teddie Deakin

A La Habra Depot Theatre production of Arnold Ridley’s 1931 melodrama. Produced by Vanessa Perkins and Robin Wolf. Directed by Christian P. Wolf. Scenic design: Christian P. Wolf and Scott Miller. Lighting design: Miller. Costume design: Ambra Wakefield. Stage manager: Charlie DelMuro.