Zombie Joe's Conjure the Spirits: 2023 Review

Zombie Joe's Underground Theatre, North Hollywood, CA

[Editor's Note: We attended a media preview of the show, and the final production running last weekend through February 18th may have some components that differ from what we witnessed. This review is based on our preview evening.]

February might seem a little early in the year for a Zombie Joe show review, but much like Halloween is for haunted attraction fans, Zombie Joe's Underground Theatre is 365 days a year. This is almost literally, because while it may be most famous in our spooky circles for its October Urban Death: Tour of Terror extravaganza, this North Hollywood theater troupe actually puts on shows year-round! Their latest offering comes from first-time ZJU writer and director, Hiro Korsgaard, called Conjure the Spirits, and it's a unique production even by Zombie Joe's standards!

Conjure the Spirits is a rarer "talkie" among most of the shows we've seen at ZJU. Our love and fascination of this theater house have by and large stemmed from their more disconnected, grotesque, minimal-dialogue, vignette-based shows like Urban Death, Blood Alley, and even their more recent hit, Cabaret Macabre. It's not that Zombie Joe's doesn't produce linear storyline plays--we loved Attack of the Rotting Corpses last fall--but our experience has usually focused on their more abstract and performance art pieces. That said, Conjure the Spirits certainly offers its own unique flair about things, mixed in with certain more unnerving and unhinged elements of Zombie Joe's shows that we've come to expect and love.

(Image courtesy of Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre.)

The surprises come almost immediately from the start of the show. Rather than file into the lobby to make their way into the black box theater space, the audience is greeted outside by Zombie Joe himself, emerging from the mysterious interior, eyes gazing blankly forward and almost devoid of their usual ebullience. He stumbles slowly ahead, moving toward the street, seemingly ignoring the crowd assembled before the ZJU entrance, transfixed upon invisible figures along Lankershim Blvd. He calls forth to the supernatural realm, summoning them to our earthly coil, and that is when the first realization of a role reversal transpires. Guests probably expect to be attending a show where the actors participate in a seance to call out and interact with ghostly specters. Instead, it's the audience who are the spirits being conjured to a playhouse to witness the behavior of the actors!

Through this semi-immersive mode, guests filter into the ZJU lobby, where Zombie joins the group and reads out trigger warnings and general house rules in character. The walls are plastered with posters of past Zombie Joe's productions--some of which Zombie references while still in his apparent trance. They're a clue into the bit of a meta experience that will soon unfold. One by one, the players in this supernatural play manifest from different corners, appearing behind and to the side of the audience apparitions gathered in the space. It seems they're rehearsing their upcoming show--a show within the show that is the actual show that the ghostly guests will soon see. But first, they have to go through their paces. There's an apparent nervousness about this show they are about to put on. Perhaps that's nerves, or perhaps it's the ghostly subject matter being a little too true to life, as the actors gesticulate and motion toward the seemingly invisible audience interspersed all around them. Stopping short of properly engaging the guests, the actors nonetheless establish an ambiance of the unnatural, and it comes off oddly entertaining!

The lobby serves as an introduction to the personalities and characteristics of each actor, but this blends into a walkthrough as the setting moves into the black box theater itself. In a bit of a Cliffs Notes format, the players work through the beats of the story that is to be told--though it may not be apparent yet to the audience. The dialogue is spitting and brisk, each actor commentating on their own role and handing off to the next in fluid motion, with the outlines rapid-firing so swiftly that one may not have time to absorb and comprehend a segment before the next unfurls. This portion feels like a voyeuristic view of a theater workshop, gathering each actor's character and placing them through their motivations, actions, and developments. For those perceiving phantasms who catch on, it may take on the appearance of a magician explaining exactly how an illusion is done before performing it and mesmerizing the crowd anyway.

(Photo by Hiro Korsgaard and courtesy of Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre.)

The story of Conjure the Spirits grows more fascinating once the actual play within the play is underway. In short, a haughty and mysterious host has invited five guests to his ominous abode to participate in a seance. But as enigmas are probed and facades begin to drop, the horror of the truth of everyone's matters threatens to reopen old wounds and expose personal secrets. Each of the characters in Conjure the Spirits is steeped in melodrama. Ryan Leonard's Bryan is the beguiling host with ulterior motives and connections that bely the supernatural. Zelda Gay is Hilda, a talented medium plagued by one ritual gone wrong that haunts her reputation and her confidence. Liza Rash's Liza is Hilda's assistant who longs--nay--lusts for more. Jordon, played by Zombie Joe veteran Jorge Lozano, is host Bryan's old cavorting friend and substance-abusing dilettante. Sarah Bruce plays Sierra, an intense and truth-seeking guest who seems to know more than she should but seeks what still has not uncovered. And Hiro Korsgaard's Aric is a skittery invitee with his own tragedy-filled past longing to recover and reconnect with that which was dearly lost. As the play progresses, the characters' arcs and conversations glide to and fro, like celestial orbits encountering momentary waltzes that take them around each other before slinging them off to the next. Those who paid attention during the "rehearsal" will tie together how the draft transforms into the acted-out production. And yet, by the time this 50-minute play is over, the events of this unnatural audience with the paranormal have devolved into a menagerie of visceral horror and disturbing pervasion very fitting of a typical Zombie Joe show.

Conjure the Spirits is a daring and unique ZJU production that carves out its own creative niche among Zombie Joe creations, but it manages to retain the sense of horrified wonder and startled questioning that so many past shows have elicited here. It's quite ambitious, with multiple arcs to its plot overlapping each other simultaneously and requiring a robust amount of attention to follow. This aspiration may set itself too high, though, as the twisting and history-infused storylines never quite brew into any masterful reveal that resolves the interlaced scheming. Instead, the seance seems to conjure dream (or nightmare)-like visuals akin to Zombie Joe's horror vignette-based shows, and exactly what happens to the characters ultimately is left open to debate and interpretation. In most ZJU shows that don't rely on a linear plot, this would be commonplace and accepted. In Conjure the Spirits, which tries to weave a mystery into its story, the finale ends up being a little jarring and confusing.

But that may be the point. The whole play feels like an exploration of the Zombie Joe play-making process, which is very fast-paced and entrepreneurial. As we learned in the Zombie Joe's 30th Anniversary Retrospective at Midsummer Scream, ZJU has long been a domain where performance art visionaries can quickly and tangibly lay their visions to the stage without the encumbrance of a more traditional, multi-level testing and approval theater system. This has helped birth numerous other theater troupes that have gone on to achieve success in their own right, including outfits like Force of Nature Productions that have garnered a certain amount of acclaim as well. Ultimately, maybe that was the spirit everyone was really trying the conjure--the morbid muse of theater where the interplay of another person's character offers the inspiration to escape into another realm.

Zombie Joe's Conjure the Spirits runs Fridays and Saturdays at 8:30 and 9:30 pm through February 18th. Tickets are $20 + fees online and $25 at the door. Content warnings include alcohol and drug abuse, strong language, nudity, frightening images, violence, sexual violence, self-harm, and strobing light effects. Mature audiences are recommended.