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‘The Hollow’ arrives at the Off-Central tonight
The Headless Horseman from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow galloped a long and circuitous route to the Off-Central, the intimate black box theater on 1st Avenue South in St. Petersburg.
Based on the post-Revolutionary War short story by Washington Irving, writer/director Roxanne Fay’s one-person adaptation, The Hollow, was postponed once due to Hurricane Helene, then for one more week as the city recovered. And then postponed again because of another unwelcome guest, Milton.
The Hollow finally arrives tonight, in a pay-what you can 7:30 performance, and will be onstage at the Off-Central nightly, through Sunday’s 3 p.m. matinee.
Cast and crew gathered at the theater Tuesday night for the first rehearsal in nine days. Everything, from Alan Mohney Jr’s performance to Michael Horn’s lighting and special effects, was working perfectly.
Not that Mohney, who’s the only person onstage for the 60 or so minutes it takes for The Hollow to unspool, has been sitting at home feeding gas into his household generator and feeling sorry for himself.
“My neighbors think I’m schizophrenic, because I walk around the neighborhood with the dog, doing my lines out loud,” he said.
Fay and Mohney, Oct. 15, 2024. Photo by Bill DeYoung.
In a nutshell, Irving’s story concerns stick-thin schoolteacher Ichabod Crane and his infatuation with the lovely and demure Katrina von Tassel. Her “other” suitor is the local tough guy, nicknamed Brom Bones.
Mohney, whose most recent one-man tour de force at the Off-Central was the restaurant comedy Fully Committed, again assays every character, including the omnipresent narrator.
On a dark, windy night, as Ichabod on his gamey horse rides past the local cemetery, he is pursued by the ghost of a local legend, the Headless Horseman. Earlier in the evening, Brom Bones had told the tale of his own encounter with the decapitated Hessian soldier, a terrifying specter that allegedly roams the night astride a terrifying black steed, searching for his missing head.
Adapting this classic American ghost story was Fay’s idea. She had always kept a place in her heart for Disney’s animated version, narrated by Bing Crosby, which she’d seen on TV as a child.
Like a lot of vintage “creepy stuff” (including the works of Edgar Allen Poe, Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley), Irving’s original story is in the public domain. “I didn’t want to do Dracula and I didn’t want to do Frankenstein,” Fay explained. “It’s been done, it’s been done.”
As an Off-Central artistic associate, the “spooky season” play choice was hers. “We love Halloween here at Off-Central, and a couple of years ago we did a Halloween cabaret, which was such fun.
“And one of the things we talk about is ‘what is it we do that makes us different from other people?’ Well, we do some really important social commentary. But we also do comedy better than a lot of people I know.’”
The Hollow isn’t exactly social commentary, and although there are humorous moments, it’s not a comedy. According to co-director June Abernathy, “it’s kid-friendly without being a kids’ show. You can bring the kids. And it’s a little scary, but there’s nothing offensive or gory.”
Added Fay: “This is something that I think people need. And now with everything they’ve gone through, I think they really need it. It’s an escape, it’s fun, it’s something that we all know in the back of our minds – we don’t need to sit here and think, and be socially conscious and all that stuff. It’s a fairy tale. It’s a folk tale that we all know.”
“And,” Mohney chimed in, “you can watch me make a total ass out of myself.”
Find tickets for all performances here.
