‘BLOOD/SUCKER’ @ Washington Ensemble Theatre

There’s a rush to seeing horror in a theatrical setting with a packed audience. It lets you know that you’re not alone: There’s the audience member gasping at every reveal; another laughing at a well-timed pressure valve of a punchline; then there’s the Aswang lurking in the walls…

“BLOOD/SUCKER,” written by Anamaria Guerzon and directed by Sophia Franzella, takes a heaping portion of Filipino mythology and drops it directly onto a story about the public school system …and those who feed it. Presented by the audacious and adventurous Washington Ensemble Theatre (aka. WET), it’s a bloody, darkly satirical play about the teachers, administration and students of a high school weathering crises both political and supernatural.

“Anamaria’s script is alive, pulsing with the horrors of the American public school system as well as the hate and fear rampant in our country,” Franzella told The Ticket. “This production will be fast, scary and visceral. It is a warning to change our ways before it’s too late. We watch characters fight for their culture, fight for their freedoms and fight both inner and outer demons.”

Guerzon’s script speaks from a place of experience. “When I was a paraeducator,” they said, “one thing I noticed was the ‘empathy burnout’ between the generations. Especially since the play is set immediately after lockdown, everyone is desperately hungry to be cared for; both the adults and the kids. That’s part of the reason I set three actor tracks to double as staff and students.”

Franzella, who gravitates toward genre work, was game to come aboard. “I love the play and specifically the horror genre because it is immediate and holds up a mirror to society. The genre puts parameters around the things that are scary so we can actually look at them. The public school system is a microcosm of our world and is a haunted-house container for America’s ghosts of the past and evils of the present.”

Horror theater works best when it embraces its tactile nature, using a bevy of practical effects to really sink its teeth into you. “For ‘BLOOD/SUCKER,’” Guerzon described, “we are leaning into the medium of theater to tell this horror story. Instead of cutaways and computer-generated effects, we are aiming to create ‘analog horror:’ horror that is handmade, a disruption to our digital world. We will use lights, sound, set, movement, performances and live shadow work to thrill and spook our audiences. Horror is hard onstage, but I feel that leaning into the theatrical medium and live nature of the forum is key.”

“There will be blood and gore,” Franzella concluded, “so buckle up.”