Very Still and Hard To See at the Lex.

I think almost all hotels are kind of creepy. All those people who slept in your room -- who knows who they were or what they did? And as for what gummy, gunky horrors that might be crawling around on that floral bed coverlet, well, anyone would be terrified about what could be there. But how much more frightening still the hotel where the original architect made some kind of a deal with a delivish monster to turn the place into a sort of luxury playground for the demon’s delight? The set of Steve Yockey’s engrossing set of horror vignettes consists mainly of a bare stage, with some chalk drawn circles on the floor. And, yet, from this director Michael Matthews crafts the atmosphere of a towering hotel, crumbling with decay and evil, full of secrets and ghosts. The architect in question, pompous Buck (Andrew Crabtree) tumbles into a hole that collapse in his construction site, and winds up in a Hellish underworld, where he’s confronted by a dialbolical demon spirit (CD Spencer). The spirit offers him his life in exchange for a small change to the structure of the hotel Buck’s constructing – a change that will allow the demon to use the building as “her” own toy. In exchange, the demon promises the architect a gift of his darkest, deepest desire – and you know that’s not going to be good. The rest of the play’s vignettes vaguely follow the history of this decidedly cursed hotel. A trio of young college kids are possessed by ghosts that compel them to murder and suicide. A beautiful, immortal woman suffers from a curse that causes her to devour anyone with whom she falls in love. And a half century later, the original architect, now a crazy old man, comes to a dreadful end at the hands of the psychotic granddaughter whom he molested for years. However, the most chilling anecdote might just be a monologue told by fussy housewife (Adeye Sahran), who, staying in the hotel during a raging storm, sees a monstrous sight that causes her to perform a terrifyingly cruel act. There’s nothing like a cracklingly paced, smoothly executed ghost story to delight and entertain – and Matthews’ spooky, suspenseful, and atmospheric presentation of Yockey’s surprisingly nuanced and creepy tales is wonderfully chilling and effective. It’s like we’re the cast and crew’s guests around the campire, as they conspire to scare the bejeesus out of us with harrowing incidents, both broad and subtle. Yockey’s writing possesses influences from Japanese folklore, but also from the works of Clive Barker and Stephen King. The plays require great versatility from the cast, with many of the performers depicting normal people trying to keep their cool and their sanity as they come face to face with the horrifically inexplicable. Particularly fine turns are offered by Coleman Drew’s cadaverous hotel elevator operator, by CD Spencer’s grinning she-demon, and by Sahran