Written and Performed by Wendy Weiner

Ddirected by Ryan Amador

Our morbid fascinations with history, of spooks and ghoulies, and one woman’s endless fight against the reaper continue to highlight more personal issues we project, particularly of our own mortality – or those we care about. Few tales convey this more than that of the life of Sarah Winchester, and our obsession with it.

Or, is it Sally? Well, now is the time to hear the accurate tale.

Subject to endless spiritual investigations, the Winchester House is a home eternally grasped in the hands of those taken by the manor’s namesake: The Winchester Rifle – a staple of the American mid-west. And after losing her child, and her beloved husband, Sarah Winchester finds themselves at a loss with what to do.

Seemingly alone, Sarah consults a medium. Their advice/warning: build. And to never stop. And so, that’s precisely what Sarah Winchester did. She purchased an unfurnished farmhouse near San Francisco and planned, designed, and constructed it for thirty-eight years. Seven Days a Week. Twenty-Four hours a day. The workman never stopped, the house growing in floors and rooms to become of the most haunted (reportedly) homes in America.

Mystery House, part presentation, part solo performance created and performed by acclaimed writer Wendy Weiner, a name many connoisseurs of the Disney channel (early 2010s) may recognise. Mystery House may delve into the endless halls of the infamous Winchester House – renowned for its dead-ends, false doors and trickster staircases, but amidst the darkness and the séance room, Wendy draws audiences closer into a more personal space which transcends history, legend, and shifts into a far more personal and poignant tale of grief, obsession, and elements of patriarchal misdemeanours of history.

Steadily, the historical elements of Sarah’s life make way for deviations of the informative and emotional. Wendy laces Sarah’s life with tales of Mary Todd Lincoln, wife to the assassinated President, peculiarly known as one of the nation’s least popular First Ladies, and stories from her own life – principally her writing career and her parents. The two entangle in their experiences with the superstitious and the grievances they faced as women fighting against the expected presence as widows or pushing back against a patriarchal society. 

It’s a touch jarring initially, as Wendy strays between narrative threads – though the performance itself is engaging, especially when the writing ventures into the personal anecdotes of Wendy and her family – including a grim yet touchingly humorous juxtaposition with being in the Happiest Place on Earth awaiting potentially horrific news. It’s all controlled well with Weiner’s performance, well projected and fully accessible and raw.

The strands tighten, however, as Mystery House comes to a conclusion and bathes itself in the supernatural elements which have rippled the initial forty minutes. Surrounded by images of the Manor house, the lights change, and a more furious and powerful element of feminist history emerges. Individually, these elements work, though tonally as a collective, they have a clashing construct. 

But as Wendy’s writing is allowed to ferment and grow, the closing becomes a powerfully intimate piece of theatre. For those seeking a soupcon of the spiritual, both a personal and supernatural, Mystery House is perfectly pitched within the Gilded Balloon Turret – a deeply welcoming production, intimate, and doesn’t push too heavily on distressing elements, making it a perfect mid-afternoon voyage through the darkness and twisting corridors of grief, empowerment, and a touch of history.