Reviewed by Marc Wheeler

3 AM is fast approaching and Anna’s certain she’s going to die. Alone in her home with a near-empty bottle of gin, she’s doing her best to fight off the voices who tell her they’re coming for her. It doesn’t help that she’s received another brick through her window — she’s at 26 now, all emblazoned with threats of attack or epithets like “Devil’s whore.” Maybe she did do what they say she did. This is the fear that’s been haunting her for years. Years since the incident where everything took a dramatic turn for the worse.

Anna, in the Darkness could be described as a one-woman show, but thanks to Mark McClain Wilson’s terrifying sound design, nearly 20 voices fill the theater with violent threats, cryptic Bible verses, abusive talk and foreboding doom. Are these voices really coming from outside the house? Or are they the relentless internal torments of a woman gone mad?

In 50 minutes of psychological suspense, Rebecca Lincoln fearsomely portrays a trapped soul whose life has been one nightmare after another, despite her desire to bring joy to those as unfortunate as herself. Jeremy Menekseoglu’s disturbing script and Amanda Weier’s simple-yet-effective direction work well in giving the one-person show format an engaging twist. Jeffrey Porter’s stark lighting design creates an eerie mood and sinister shadows that elevate the production to maximum darkness.

They’re coming for you, Anna. But before they do you must purge your soul of that which damns you.

3 AM is fast approaching.

American Studio Theater is producer. Amber Bruegel is stage manager.

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