Paranormal Activity
Levi Holloway
American Conservatory Theater
In Co-Production with Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Center Theater Group & Shakespeare Theatre Company
About to celebrate their first wedding anniversary, Lou and and James suddenly make a move from Chicago to London, adjusting to new jobs in a new house in a new country — a country where bathrooms are loos; the rain seems endless; and roundabouts are scary (especially driving on the wrong side of the road). But as they are still unpacking a box here and there, it becomes uneasily clearer that maybe something that they had hoped they left behind in the Windy City, has smuggled itself through Customs and is hiding in some shadowed corner, behind some closed door, or maybe, just in their imaginations. But as lights suddenly flicker, something pounds against the front door, or a door opens and slams upstairs, tensions begin slowly to rise even as the relative newly weds try to figure out what to eat for dinner or how to convince a busy-body mother that she does not need to make a mad dash across the ocean to help them out.
In a North American premiere and in co-production with Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Center Theater Group & Shakespeare Theatre Company, American Conservatory Theatre opens Levi Holloway’s Paranormal Activity, an original story based on the fantastical, creepy, and hair-raising premises of the horror film series by the same title. In a production sure to cause some sweaty palms, nervous laughter, gasped breaths, and maybe even a sudden half-scream from audience members, Felix Barrett directs a Paranormal Activity in which the anticipation of what might happen next is just as unnerving and scary as the increasing number of unsettling noises, disturbing lights and shadows, and sudden appearances and disappearances that do occur.
Much of the brilliance of the script as well as the direction is that what we initially see sucks us in to believe all is so normal and everyday. A still-newlywed couple is clearly having some trouble adjusting not just to their sudden upheavals of location and jobs, but still to each other. James presses Lou if she is taking her anti-depressant meds for some sort of issue she seems to have suffered in Chicago while she gets mad the mommy’s boy has spilled the beans to his nosy mother of her condition — a mother-in-law who is pressing hard for a grandkid to be conceived as soon as possible. The evening’s early scene also draws laughter from us an audience with mildly funny lines like James’ noting his surprise that TJ Max in London is TK Max, “because everything over here is one letter off.”
But amidst the innocuous chatter, we begin to hear lines like Lou’s, “The whole situation scares me … Chicago scared me,” or her, “I have a feeling of dread always.” A few things begin to happen like the burglar alarm suddenly sounding in the middle of the night along with an unexplained bump from the outside and the lights going off. But explanations are easy to find with all the rain of London or a bird that accidentally flew into a window. However, more sudden sounds and flickers lead Lou to admit uneasily, “I hope I am a little crazy [because] if I am not … then we are not safe.”
And now as we lean in with increased awareness that maybe neither they or we are as alone as it might seem, the fun really starts to happen. Much of the two hours rollercoaster ride of many oft-seen-coming twists and turns is made all the more real, eerie, and even frightening by the lighting design of Anna Watson and the sound design of Gareth Fry. Lights both blindingly bright and darkly dim as well sounds both deafening and barely audible make their presence and shifts in moments often fast and furious to arrive. Sometimes, there is a low, sustained chord barely heard as just a normal conversation is occurring on stage, with our own stomachs tightening and breaths held, wondering what will happen next, if anything. Other times, out of the blue we see what appear are headlights flash across the room like from a passing vehicle … maybe something ordinary or maybe something ominous. That is for the next few seconds to determine.
All plays out in an impressive, two-story setting of the couple’s home designed by Fly Davis (also costume designer), with a number of rooms with ample furnishings like ones would expect to see in a normal, young couple’s home, and certainly with a plenty of doors and a shower curtain that may or may not hide something behind them. The illusions of things we may or may not be actually be seeing of things that may or may not be actually happening have been designed by Chris Fisher.
Cher Álvarez and Travis A. Knight are both exceptionally cast in their respective roles as Lou and James. She is at times is like a wounded animal, cowering in a corner only to arise with resentment and a flash of anger that he does not really believe what she is experiencing. He is somewhat self-centered with a lot of “I’s” coming in his statements of concern for her, and his relationship with his mother speaks of his still not letting go totally of her apron strings. As events become ever more unexpected and inexplicable, each transforms into one moment frightened to tears and in the next, someone the other hardly recognizes. What we begin to understand is that a statement we hear early on in a podcast via a broadcasting Alexa, “Places aren’t haunted, people are,” is maybe true not only for each of these newly weds with their own, unshared secrets, but also for a relationship that may have more demons creeping within it than their lovey-dovey selves seem to indicate when we first meet them.
Shannon Cochran is the big-smiling, bouncy in personality mother of James whose video calls are full of probing questions and pointed advice. While living now in rather posh Boca Ratan, Florida, her Carolanne’s Southern drawl, expressions, and proneness to prayer as the answer for all that is wrong place her more from the a small, all-white town in Alabama.
Rounding out the cast of four is Kate Fry as an invited, semi-famous medium who is called upon to lead the now-frightened couple in a eye-popping seance — one whose conclusion is yet another reason to jump a little out of our seats.
The first act of Levi Holloway’s Paranormal Activity is somewhat entertaining but is nothing to write home about; but once the second act begins, the pace of surprises and the level of suspense dramatically skyrockets. With noise levels often reaching ear-piercing decibels and with lighting often either quite dim or atmosphere hazy, some lines here and there are missed just in a crux moment or some occurrence is a bit hard exactly to discern. I did find myself scratching my head a few times trying to figure out what I had just heard or seen.
For anyone who is a horror film fan (which does not at all include me), I imagine that seeing what plays out live, on stage would have to be quite fun and satisfying. But even for someone like me who would never find myself watching one of the seven films in the demonic Paranormal Activity film series, this stage version has just enough of Alfred Hitchcock and Rod Sterling’s touches along with the incredibly staged aspects of the horror genre to be quite satisfying and captivating.
Rating: 4.5 E
A Theatre Eddys Best Bet Production
Paranormal Activity continues through March 22, 2026, in a two-hour (including intermission) production at American Conservatory Theatre, the Toni Rembe Theatre, 415 Geary Street, San Francisco. Tickets are available online at https://www.act-sf.org, by phone at 415-749-2228, and by email at tickets@act-sf.org.
Photo Credits: Kyle Flubacker and Teresa Castracane Photography
