Theater	Hell and Damnation for Fun, Profit by Thomas Dooney

Alleyway Theater's "Buffalo Hell House" opens Friday and runs through Halloween.

Alleyway Theater is famous for providing Buffalo audiences with merry holiday fare. For the past 25 Decembers it has been the most consistent purveyor of A Christmas Carol, using artistic director Neal Radice’s own, close-to-Dickens script.

This year Alleyway’s calendar features Buffalo Hell House, a Halloween extravaganza that promises gore as well as pointed humor. Todd Warfield, Alleyway’s designer in residence and the director of this project, and his Halloween tricksters will haunt a loft space one block north of the Theatre District, on the second floor above Rick’s Cycle Shop and DC Theatricks. It is a specially selected destination with a project of distinctive origins.

For the past 10 years or so, Hell Houses produced by Christian groups have been a widespread phenomenon throughout North America. Disgruntled, covetous folks who are more dedicated to fundamentalism than to fun found a way to put Satan on their own payroll. They are a co-option of the amusement park haunted houses. Visitors are guided from room to room showing mini-scenes which depict the wages of sin (i.e. death), including drinking, dating, drugging and same-sex marriage.

The tableaux are based on strict beliefs of salvation and damnation, and Hell Houses are intended to sway teens to finite good by depicting the horrors of almost unavoidable evil. The movement has been made popular by Pastor Keenan Roberts of Arvada, Colorado. In an interview with National Public Radio, Roberts said, “We’re saying, ‘Look, sin is hurting our nation and Jesus Christ is the answer to what you’re going through.’” There are about 500 Roberts-approved Hell Houses performed each year, attracting thousands upon thousands of young people who pay for the privilege.

Buffalo Hell House’s Warfield reports, “Reverend Keenan Roberts sells the script for Hell House on the Internet for like 300 bucks.” He adds, “I’ve changed very, very little of it. The challenge for us is to perform it sincerely.”

Sincerely, yes, but also skewed in context…sort of fighting hellfire with stage fire. Direct imitation would be flattery but, suggests Warfield, artful exaggeration will allow Buffalo audiences to better examine what and how fundamentalists are teaching their own children.

Warfield would seem to be just the guy to take overblown morality and inflate it to the point of explosion. Buffalo Hell House follows the precedent of his own visual excesses seen in last year’s musical Reefer Madness; the show won Warfield an Artie award for costume design. The wardrobe for that cannabis-induced fantasy wardrobe was envisioned as a hybrid of a lingerie fashion show, sequined Las Vegas hooch and the Passion Play at Öberammergau. In Buffalo Hell House, you can expect spurting blood, oozing organs and the moans of suffering souls wishing for death.

At the end of the parade of horrors, after having had their fill of date rape, adultery and Satanism, visitors are able to choose their own fate, selecting a door toward salvation or into damnation.

Church-sponsored Hell Houses happily claim a salvation rate of about 33 percent. Somehow, it’s a relief to know that two-thirds don’t buy the holy hokum. Responsible religious groups and civil rights organizations denounce Hell Houses for perpetrating bigotry and for flat-out lying. A third-trimester abortion is shown as a casual medical procedure practiced by a bored hospital staff, for example. In fact only one percent of abortions are attempted that late in pregnancy. A fallacious presentation of the Colombine shooting implies that devout Christians are often victims of violent attack.

There are certain challenges when producing a show in a non-theatrical venue. Finding the right site is just the first challenge. Warfield considered a number of vacated industrial spaces until he found one that suited the technical demands of the show. Dress rehearsals only take place at night, but not for any occult reasons. Warfield can only perfect the show’s effects when the rooms are dark, just as the audience will experience them.

And then there is the task of casting the role of Satan. Can any one actor exude that much evil? One of Warfield’s directorial tasks has been to line up a series of guests stars who will play the Dark Overlord in rotation. Lucifer will be enacted by local theater personalities from Alleyway artistic director Radice (imagine—the same sweet guy who adapted A Christmas Carol) to BUA stalwart Jimmy Janowski.

Just to be clear—Buffalo Hell House is an adult attraction, definitely not for children. It’s always worth noting when a satirist is behaving with more decorum than the source.

Hell House Buffalo runs October 19-31, (Tue-Sat, 7pm) at 745 Main Street, between Goodell and Tupper. For further details call 852-2600 or visit alleyway.com.