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HELL HOUSE. By Keenan Roberts. Directed by Alex Timbers. Les Freres Corbusier. St. Ann's Warehouse, New York City. 24 October 2006.
Every autumn, in small towns across America, evangelical church groups erect Christian-themed versions of haunted houses called "Hell Houses." A holiday attacked annually by Christian evangelicals for its connections with paganism, Halloween is turned instead into an opportunity for outreach. The purpose of Hell Houses is ostensibly to frighten the unbelieving and apathetic with sights and sounds of damnation, and Hell Houses are populated with sinners rather than ghosts and goblins. The defiance of traditional moral codes yields immediate, spectacular results: taking ecstasy at a rave necessarily leads to gang rape and suicide, premarital sex to psychological breakdowns, roleplaying games to school shootings, gay marriage to AIDS and death.
Hell Houses have their roots in the "Scaremares" of Rev. Jerry Falwell's ministry during the 1970s. Their format and dramaturgy has been since codi- fied in the "Hell House kits" created by Pastor Keenan Roberts of the Abundant Life Christian Center in Arvada, Colorado. For $300, the kits provide any group with the script, a manual, and rights for production. Given that a Hell House's primary audience is usually a bused-in church group, there is some question as to whether or not Hell Houses do more than frighten the already converted. This past Halloween, however, Les Freres Corbusier, a critically acclaimed group known for its experiments with canonical plays (Heddatron) and icons of popular culture (A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant), confronted...