Lovecraft’s “collaborative” works (often a euphemism for “ghost-written”) have long enjoyed a mixed reputation, including, for those prepared during his lifetime, by Lovecraft himself. This can make such stories harder to find in print now; still less commonly in versions with the detailed scholarly notes his solo fiction has attracted. When I finally read “The Horror In The Museum”, I wondered what its stated author, Hazel Heald, had contributed, since the work reads in parts like a museum of Lovecraftiana, as expressed and expanded by Lovecraft and others in period magazines such as “Weird Tales”, while in places, it has as much impact as some of Lovecraft’s better “solos”. In converting the lone-character narrative to a full-cast DART production, the HPLHS has reworked the story neatly, most especially in its introduction of a strong, appropriately female, protagonist, as a fine counterpoint to the enigmatic, Nyarlathotep-like character of Orabona (played here with obvious relish, not mere salad-dressing, by Amir Abdullah). In bringing the exhibition to Chicago from London (spoiler, if one telegraphed by the physical props), the tale becomes further expanded and open-ended in a way Lovecraft himself used to create fresh horror and uncertainty. The whole is a well-crafted presentation, so while the wax museum may have become a minor horror trope since Lovecraft wrote, this is a fresh take in a 1920s-period manner to be heartily recommended. Dram of Glen Lloigor with that?
