H.P. Lovecraft’s short horror stories always need to be met (at least) halfway by the reader’s imagination–he leads you down a path and generally makes suggestions rather than assertions, leaving your own sick mind to fill in the details. So maybe it’s wrong of me to have hoped for a little more blatant payoff in this, Open Circle’s eighth annual Lovecraft adaptation. The script’s talky-talky-talky (a virtuoso exercise in memorization for two of the three actors), and absorbing though all the exposition is, the creeps and shocks of the climax might be fewer than you expect, given what you’ve sat through. In one scene, in which two characters explore a hidden catacomb, the actors poke around behind your seats (advice: sit on the right of the house as you face the stage), and the unseen creaks and thumps and “Oh, my God!”s do raise a chill–and also suggest the whole thing might be better off as a radio play, leaving out the visuals altogether and letting our ears alone work on our nerves. GAVIN BORCHERT

Thursdays-Saturdays, 7:30 p.m.; Sundays, 4 p.m. Starts: Oct. 9. Continues through Nov. 14, 2009