Ghostly incompetence to haunt Palmer High School stage

PALMER — Ghosts in popular culture come in various types.

There are mournful ghosts, angry ghosts, even the famous cartoon-friendly ghost. But an incompetent ghost?

Oscar Wilde may have cornered the market on incompetent apparitions with his first published short story, “The Canterville Ghost.” And now Palmer High School is bringing the theatrical version of the story to the stage just in time for Halloween.

“He’s been dead for somewhere around 400 years and it’s sort of driven him a bit mad,” said Palmer senior Sterling Maffe. who plays Sir Simon, the eponymous ghost.

Maffe said that portraying the prankster poltergeist has been “very fun.” The bloodstains and rattling chains are played for comic effect when they fail to frighten the family that moves into his home manor at the start of the play. Maffe said Simon’s personality is revealed over the course of the play.

“You realize later that he has a soft and sensitive side,” Maffe said.

His sister, Sarah Maffe, also a senior, plays Virginia Otis, part of a family that moved into the manor the ghost haunts. Virginia is skeptical when it comes to the supernatural.

“She’s just closed-minded,” Sarah Maffe said. But, as the plays goes on, “she realizes that there’s more to it.”

Sarah Maffe is a veteran of the Palmer High stage and was excited to get such a major part.

“It’s actually my first where I’ve had more than two minutes on stage,” she said.

Virginia’s love interest is Duke Charles, played by Thomas Doak.

“He’s pretty much just a super nice guy,” Doak says of his character.

Doak has taken the stage before for Valley Performing Arts, but this is his debut at PHS. He’s homeschooled.

“I don’t even go to this school, but they were totally willing to let me jump in,” he said.

Serving the Otises at their new estate is longtime maid Mrs. Umney played by Aubrey Sage.

“She’s very melodramatic and nervous, and I guess some people might describe her as psychotic,” Sage said.

But that’s understandable, she said, given that her character’s backstory includes 40 years living and working in a haunted manor whose spirit simply refuses to leave her and her family alone.

“His entertainment is playing pranks on the Umneys,” Sage said.

It’s been great fun to play a crazy person, she said, conceding that she may have added just a touch more insanity to the character than was already there.

“It’s just good fun,’ she said.

Stan Harris, the PHS music teacher heading up the production, said that what he’s seen of the production looks great. “We did it on a really short schedule, but we have mostly actors who have done this a lot,” Harris said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270

or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.

What: Palmer High School presents ‘The Canterville Ghost’

Where: Palmer High School theater

When: 7 p.m., Oct. 10, 11, 17, 18 and 19, and 2 p.m., Oct. 13.

Cost: $10 for adults, $7 for seniors and students