Bob Morris

Face to Face With My Inner Mean Old Man

By BOB MORRIS, NYT

When it comes to noise, I am, to put it generously, a sensitive neighbor. So when the bloodcurdling screams started emanating from the Gateway’s Haunted Playhouse up the street from my weekend retreat in Bellport, Long Island, several years ago, it irked me. I had just spent the summer battling the teenagers in the house behind me for talking late into the night on a screened-in porch. And now, with summer barely over, I’d be forced to listen to recreational screaming every weekend?

Other neighbors closed their windows and ignored it. I obsessed and ruminated. What kind of world is it, I muttered to myself while walking the dog under the stars (the occasional scream pricking the night) where everyone thinks they have a right to pollute the air with noise? What happened to civility? Community? Neighborly responsibility?

Never mind that the site was a historic theater that needed to monetize Halloween to help keep itself solvent, or that it wasn’t exactly next door. How dare they invade my personal space, I thought, with their vulgar and ghoulish assault?

When I finally bought a ticket and went inside, encouraged by both morbid curiosity and good word of mouth, I was surprised to discover a series of artfully designed and directed tableaux vivants reminiscent of installations by Edward Kienholz, Paul McCarthy, Marina Abramovic and “Sleep No More,” the eerie, immersive downtown theater hit. I emerged scared out of my mind, but also elevated by the virtuosity.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised. Many haunted houses, guided by highly creative people, are distinguishing themselves these days. And perhaps because ours is a horror-hungry culture looking for interaction, live experiences and high-impact catharsis, the genre is proliferating. Good news for the Halloween obsessed, but not so much for me.

This year, I was chagrined to learn that Gateway’s Haunted Playhouse was starting earlier, in late September. When regular announcements from the theater’s public address system joined the periodic screams, I e-mailed a complaint. Along with a conciliatory response from the owner, who promised to show more neighborly sensitivity, I received an invitation to join the show.

It seemed like a crazy idea. On the other hand, I saw the cathartic opportunity in channeling my frustrations into one long night of screaming at as many people as possible.

To “do exactly as your neighbors do,” Emily Post suggested, “is the only sensible rule.”

In other words, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

And so, with a sense of dread, but also titillation, I made my way past the bales of hay and eerie skull signage on the grounds of the theater, with its historic red barn and ramshackle outbuildings, to the extensive preparation area of the haunted house. In what seemed like perfect typecasting, I was to play a grumpy old man.

Before show time, the place was a hive of convivial efficiency. Sixty enthusiastic actors, all trained to remain in character and directed to choose quieter scare tactics whenever appropriate, chatted happily. I emerged from a session with professional costume and makeup artists looking like my true inner curmudgeon.

The theater’s “haunt director,” a twinkly eyed man who took the safety and artistic integrity of the enterprise seriously, led me through a warren of sets, past an impressive computerized control center, to my spot: the archetypal living room of grandmother’s house, with an open Red Riding Hood basket and a portrait of a wolf on the wall.

The gore was in the next room, in grandmother’s bed. I was just the warm-up act. A friendly actor dressed as a wolf, with the impressive-sounding title of “zone captain,” set me in my place and had me practice my part: I was to pop out from the shadows and yell, “Be quiet!”

I took to it instantly, of course, and banged my cane for emphasis so hard that I broke the top off. Soon enough, groups of people were passing through, many holding on to one another — among them, friends who didn’t recognize me. Many jumped in a gratifying way when I shouted at them. I especially liked scaring the tough-looking guys who were twice my size. And although I didn’t cause anyone to lose control of his bodily functions, I did pretty well for my first time out.

On a break, I talked to the diffident teenage Red Riding Hood working alongside me, who confessed: “I love scaring people. It’s so satisfying, isn’t it?”

Yes, but disconcerting, too. Don’t we have more than enough people using scare tactics in far too many ways these days?

As I kept up my assaults, always choosing to yell rather than using the more subtle (and potentially effective) approach of speaking softly, I began to think about my need to overpower and control. Is it really the best way to handle relationships with neighbors and other people who have opposing points of view? Or would a more tolerant approach yield a greater sense of community and, as a side benefit, a less hoarse voice?

Several hours later I emerged, in need of a throat lozenge. I was happily exhausted, but also a little ashamed, ready to return my cane and take off my mean-old-man face.

“Are you less grumpy now?” asked the producer of the event as I left. I told him yes, I hoped so. Then I walked home under a half-full (rather than half-empty) moon, if not at peace then at least not irked, and attuned more to the crickets than to the screams in the night.