Post by Joanna on Jan 20, 2018 2:04:38 GMT -5
Nevermore: A Play about Edgar Allan Poe
Given the name of the company, Black Button Eyes Productions probably had a date from the beginning with Edgar Allan Poe. You know, that gent poetical who enjoyed the company of ravens and quothing, and a kitty lover whose idea of fun was to peer deep into darkness, dreaming dreams so dank and depressing that no mortal had dared precede him. That guy.
Poe may have once tried to kill himself by ingesting opiates, feeling his life of little worth beyond posing for a daguerreotype, but he was hugely influential in all sorts of literary endeavors: horror, science fiction, detective fiction, poetry, haunted houses in theme parks .... Plus he was one of the first American poets to actually attempt to make a living from his work. With varied success. No shame there.
It’s not Halloween, of course, and thus the high-style, Grand Guignol production of the 2009 musical Nevermore that director Ed Rutherford has cooked up at the Edge Theater in Edgewater, Illinois, – packed to the gills when I saw the show Saturday night – feels a tad out of sync with the calendar. It’s also a show that surely would have benefitted from a more immersive theater space, the kind in which Black Button Eyes usually works. The Edge is a great space for the right sort of piece, but it means the band has to be sequestered offstage, enjoying no real relationship with the performers, despite the overt theatricality of the conceit. And it also means that Rutherford’s cast, which is stocked with capable performers, seems to float at a certain remove.
Jonathan Christenson’s show is written almost entirely in rhyme. No mean feat, this, and Rutherford’s crew is very much up to to task. This is what you might call a strictly biographical musical and this should hold much appeal for Poe devotees, though I find the piece (created in Canada and seen off-Broadway in 2015) lacking in point of view, never mind contrast of tone. The other issue that’s hard to get past is that everything is so on the nose. It’s one thing to do a creepy version of, say, an apparently Milquetoast children’s tale or some historical bit of nastiness. But if you’re telling the life of Edgar Allen Poe very much a la Edgar Allen Poe, then you leave yourself open to the charge that Edgar Allen Poe actually got there first. And did it better.
This said, there is a deep dive into ersatz Poedom to enjoy here, as executed by the hugely talented Kevin Webb in the lead role, and the whole shebang is narrated by Jeremy Trager with both relish and musical accomplishment. See, “the generous critic fann’d the Poet’s fire, and taught the world with reason to admire.” And then he gave the show 2½ stars.
Source: Chris Jones, The Chicago Tribune, January 18, 2018.