ROAD'S 'WOMAN IN BLACK' SCARES WITH EXPERT STAGECRAFT.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

IF DESMA MURPHY isn't the most skillful set designer working small scale at L.A.-area theaters, then by God, I'd like to meet her competition.

Take a gander at the dilapidated theater Murphy has scared up for ``The Woman in Black'' at the Road Theatre Company and you'll quickly recognize why Murphy is as critical an element to the Road's continuing success as any member of the 11-year-old, NoHo-based acting ensemble.

Shrouded in dust and festooned with decaying slats and authentic-seeming cobwebs, Murphy gives us a lair of ruin with multiple locations all occupying a single space. Drapes cover furniture, wraithlike figures on the wall look like they should spring to ghostly life. In fact, every piece of furniture looks like it should hide a nasty surprise.

For ``The Woman in Black,'' Murphy has a pretty terrific support system: most notably lighting designer Robert L. Smith, who shines, darkens, pierces and blurs an audience into appropriate levels of unease. Sound designers David B. Marling and Ken Sawyer (the latter is also the production's director) know the effect of a creaky floor or a well-executed scream.

``The Woman in Black'' is an ``Eek!'' play, an uncerebral, two-actor ghost story that will shrivel like crepe paper if the technical team isn't in sync. We're firmly in the season of theme-park crypts, haunted mazes, ghost ships and creature encounters. The price of the Road show may not include a few laps on a roller coaster, but director Sawyer, his actors and his technical team likely will scramble your nervous system as effectively as any decaying Scary Farm ghoul. < As skillful as the execution is, mind you, these 'eeks!' are fairly cheaply earned. How challenging is it to make an audience jump when you disrupt silence with a strategically slammed door or a recorded sound-effect shriek? Adapted by Stephen Mallatratt from Susan Hill's book, ``The Woman in Black'' was a long-running hit in London's West End that is now getting numerous productions at smaller regional theaters throughout the country (including one currently playing at the Pasadena Shakespeare Company).

Chances are, Mallatratt's audiences aren't embracing any psychological horror. A straightforward ghost story requiring one of the two performers (Joe Hart at the Road) to take on several roles, ``Black'' finds a middle-age solicitor named Kipps (Hart) hiring a younger actor (a Hugh Grant-like Paul Witten) to essentially play out the experience that terrified Kipps in his youth.

Call it an exorcism. Business took Kipps to an isolated marshland estate where he encountered legends, secrets and a ghostly black-clad figure whose presence requires an explanation. (Just a guess here, but I suspect Mallatratt has seen Peter Hyams' much-neglected 1980 horror film ``The Changeling.'')

Anyway, Hart and Witten both display considerable versatility. Sawyer uses them, and all his technical toys, expertly. If you don't jump or gasp, it's certainly not the Road's fault.

And kudos especially to set designer Murphy, without whom these kinds of frights would certainly not be possible.

THE WOMAN IN BLACK - Three stars

Where: Road Theatre Company, 5108 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood.

When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 7 p.m. Sunday (some Thursday performances); through Dec. 21.

Tickets: $20. Call [phone].