By Carolyn Hayes

Among the vast supernatural arsenal, it can be argued that the strongest power is that of suggestion. Unknown enemies and motives are much harder and scarier to combat than known ones, and the suspenseful capacity of human imagination is a treacherous trickster all its own. It’s in this eerie spirit that The AKT Theatre Project conjures a spine-tingling seasonal mystery in “The Turn of the Screw,” adapted by Jeffery Hatcher from the same-named 19th-century Henry James novella. Under the artful direction of Adriane Galea, this racing one-act play manifests the frantic intensity of its storyteller, making the literary leap to the stage with relatively few theatrical pitfalls.

The tale, set in 1872 England, is wound up tightly enough to be portrayed by just two actors: Rachel Dalton as the unnamed governess whose diary entries make up the story, and Bailey Boudreau as everyone else. Although the script liberally condenses and contains the work in a swift seven-day timeline, its rich language, prudish Victorian circumspection, and clear first-person voice remain faithful to James’s original story and style.

Uninitiated viewers should be able to follow the major plot points of the governess’s journey: Hired by an intoxicating, distant gentleman to care for his faraway niece and nephew in near-perfect isolation, the mysteries of the House of Bly and its inhabitants slowly become apparent to her (and it’s no coincidence that the words “apparent” and “apparition” have the same root). Granted, more advanced familiarity with the literary work may return greater dividends with respect to the knee-deep sexual subtext and maddening ambiguity that have made this piece a hotbed of interpretation, but it’s not a prerequisite to enjoy the production’s gently insistent evocations of disturbance.

Precision is paramount in the work of Galea and company; every stage picture and footfall is carefully crafted in service of unwavering tone. Cleverly, this involves not only synchronization and mirroring, but exploration: The stage is set in the round, a rigorous exercise in symmetry within the alternative Wyandotte Arts Center space. This allows shape-shifting Boudreau to venture behind and around the central seating area, interjecting with faraway verbal sound effects or inscrutably surveying. Dim lighting (by Harley Miah) similarly saturates the room, completing the overall effect of creepily limitless theatrical possibility.

The team of Boudreau and Dalton work well together to opposing ends. The former lends an unsettling edge to his characters, in particular the judgmentally prim housekeeper, Mrs. Grose, and the rascally Miles, a charming little 10-year-old devil in his own right. Yet in contrast to the immediacy of the secondary characters’ motives and information, Dalton must play opposite them in a long game. Her Governess is believably fanciful, a character eminently capable of being “rather easily carried away,” and the actress sails through lengthy dalliances in internal monologue that connect the dots from striving for impeccable job performance to protecting innocent children to vanquishing evil itself. Together, the small cast achieves compelling interaction as effectively as it does striking remoteness, ultimately setting the Governess alone against her tormentors.

The production is not intended to be a fright fest; to some extent, it baldly lacks the capacity to shock, given its known quantities and closed system. Yet the greatest overall challenge may be that the very act of staging requires some degree of interpretation, which threatens a text like this that so insistently defies it – although the tone is clear, the content sometimes falters by remaining so frustratingly opaque. In the same vein, one of the show’s sharpest choices also becomes one of its biggest weaknesses. Much of the tonal spookiness is owed to rapid-fire pacing, a keen fit for a protagonist who lets inference and suggestion run away with her; however, when it comes time to ratchet up the tension, the only tool remaining is volume, which makes for an ugly shouting match of a climax.

Yet in the aggregate, this “Turn” uses theatrics to its clear advantage, putting a psychologically intense narrative on its feet and preserving the quality of hysteric determination that keeps readers (and, here, viewers) in its thrall. More than a century after its inception, there’s suspense enough in this simmering, ghostly story to satisfy a Halloween mood.