
The Strange and Eerie Memoirs of Billy Wuthergloom
Now on stage at Toronto's Red Sandcastle Theatre, 922 Queen Street East

Credit: Matthew McLaren Pictured: Eric Woolfe
Joe Szekeres
“Bizarrely comical! Devilishly droll! Musically morbid! What a hell of a ride! I enjoyed every minute of it.”
Eric Woolfe does remarkable things with stage makeup to ensure his eyes remain prominent. He enhances them with dark stage makeup/mascara, making his eyes both haunting and repulsive yet simultaneously gripping and enthralling.
What’s that old saying? The eyes become the window to the soul.
Eric’s eyes make me want to squirt some Windex on a kitchen cloth and scrub the grime away from his eyes to dig further and see what lies underneath these oddball characters he creates on stage.
This time around, it’s one of the most bizarre journeys I’ve experienced—puberty and all that comes with it. This production marks the 25th anniversary of Eldritch Theatre’s inaugural show. ‘Billy Wuthergloom’ is not a tale about the natural process of maturing from a boy to a young man—far from it. According to the Eldritch Theatre website, puberty is supernatural, and we are meant to be afraid and terrified and to pray that things don’t find us.
‘Billy Wuthergloom’ is also one hell of a ride that made me laugh out loud many times and even experience a quiet shudder when I remembered how puberty made me feel awkward.
Toronto’s Red Sandcastle Theatre is an ideal place to enter Billy’s world. Director Mairi Babb effectively creates, at times, a claustrophobic and eerie world filled with shadows, curtains, and blackness that may seem a bit unsettling at first. But that’s Eldritch Theatre. One must be ready for the unexpected: the devilish, the impish, and the horrors of puberty and all it involves.
Wuthergloom grew up in the 1980s amidst the ‘ghastly terrors’ of puberty. He resides in a suburban New Bosford home haunted by a succubus under his bed. Billy collects ghastly puppetry of all sorts (nod of appreciation to designers Woolfe and Dawn Weaver) and recounts his childhood and adolescence, including his tumultuous relationship with his first best friend, Hirskill Fischmascher, who is described on the Eldritch website as a child mystic capable of seeing things others cannot. The dynamic between the two remains peculiar; for some reason, Billy and Hirskill understand each other.
When the show begins, Kathleen Welch, the Creepy Musician, enters and sits at her organ far stage left. She’s dressed as a mix of characters—from ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and Magenta from ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show.’ Thanks to Marc Downing's score, Welch produces captivating musical sound effects with her voice. I didn’t think the voice could reach such heights, but Welch achieves it with flair. There are moments when Eric and Kathleen are in beautiful synchronicity, with him crooning some cheeky ditty and her following in time, looking at him with playful fondness.
Woolf’s initial appearance as Billy Wuthergloom immediately evokes Pugsley from ‘The Addams Family.’ Billy sports a baseball cap with a crooked lid perched over his right ear. Pasty makeup decorates his face, and his eyes (those eyes!) stare out as if Billy is looking straight into our very souls. His tattered band t-shirt, baggy pants, and shoes complete his darkly edgy aesthetic, which expresses a desire to fit in somewhere with his best friend, Hirskill.
I'm hooked when Billy tells the audience his story about growing up. With some double-entendre songs and a giant storybook about puberty that is not meant for young children, ‘Billy Wuthergloom’ is a Gothically garish tale of the woes and agonies of adolescence that kept me smiling and laughing throughout the 90-minute unbroken runtime.
And it’s all thanks to Eric Woolfe, an extraordinary storyteller of the macabre, the ghoulish, and the uncanny. Woolfe is also quite an illusionist, and watching some of the tricks he performs with sleight of hand is entertaining.
Absolute Fun!!!!!!!!!
We need Eric Woolfe now more than ever to make us smile and laugh and get us through these next four years.
Running time: approximately 90 minutes with no intermission.
The 25th Anniversary production of ‘The Strange and Eerie Memoirs of Billy Wuthergloom’ is now on stage at Toronto’s Red Sandcastle Theatre, 922 Queen Street East until February 9. For tickets: https://www.ticketscene.ca/series/1266/ or visit https://eldritchtheatre.ca/billy/
ELDRITCH THEATRE presents
The 25th Anniversary Production of ‘ The Strange and Eerie Memoirs of Billy Wuthergloom’
Created and performed by Eric Woolfe
Creepy Musician: Kathleen Welch
Directed by Mairi Babb
Music by Marc Downing
Original Production Directed by Jason Charters
Puppets: Eric Woolfe and Dawn Weaver
Stage Manager: Sabrina Weinstein

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