poe: a fever dream
Oct. 15th, 2010 11:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
st_emmaIt is no secret: I love Edgar Allan Poe, and have for a while. So when I learned that 11:11 Theatre Company was producing a set of adaptations of his poems and stories, I got tickets.
The theatre itself, a delightfully intimate space in the basement of what seems to be a renovated mill building, was perfect for an evening of Poe, and the weather cooperated as well, providing us with a light drizzle, not enough to saturate, but definitely enough to provide atmosphere.
The adaptations covered most of the classics - "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Raven," "The Tell-Tale Heart" - with a few surprises thrown in; I did not expect to see dramatic readings of two of my favourite poems ("Alone" and A Dream Within a Dream") and an adaptation of "Hop-Frog".
The pieces were written and directed by a variety of people, so the quality was somewhat uneven. "Masque of the Red Death" suffered from too much explanation and not enough atmosphere; it's hard to imagine how one could bring it satisfyingly to life without mounting a Punchdrunk-style production, something Punchdrunk has already done (although sadly not in North America.) It probably would have been wiser to go with something a little easier to adapt, such as "Ligeia," which would have made a lovely companion piece for "Berenice," which was well-handled. "The Tell-Tale Heart" did an extremely good job of utilizing the ensemble cast to dramatize the inner struggle of the protagonist, and "The Pit and the Pendulum" was an audacious choice that wound up being more interpretive dance than theatre, and may have been somewhat opaque to anyone unfamiliar with the source material. "The Cask of Amontillado" suffered from giving Montresor a reason for his actions; it's a much more sinister tale if his motivations are unclear. The cast was mostly solid, but the real standout was Cassandra Meyer, most notably as The Devil in "Never Bet the Devil Your Head," which is a cautionary tale for us all.
And then we stumbled out into the night to discover our car had been ticketed for a parking violation. Thank you very much, Boston PD, for your utter lack of "Residents Only Parking" signs. Other than that one glitch, it was a reasonably satisfying night.
The theatre itself, a delightfully intimate space in the basement of what seems to be a renovated mill building, was perfect for an evening of Poe, and the weather cooperated as well, providing us with a light drizzle, not enough to saturate, but definitely enough to provide atmosphere.
The adaptations covered most of the classics - "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Raven," "The Tell-Tale Heart" - with a few surprises thrown in; I did not expect to see dramatic readings of two of my favourite poems ("Alone" and A Dream Within a Dream") and an adaptation of "Hop-Frog".
The pieces were written and directed by a variety of people, so the quality was somewhat uneven. "Masque of the Red Death" suffered from too much explanation and not enough atmosphere; it's hard to imagine how one could bring it satisfyingly to life without mounting a Punchdrunk-style production, something Punchdrunk has already done (although sadly not in North America.) It probably would have been wiser to go with something a little easier to adapt, such as "Ligeia," which would have made a lovely companion piece for "Berenice," which was well-handled. "The Tell-Tale Heart" did an extremely good job of utilizing the ensemble cast to dramatize the inner struggle of the protagonist, and "The Pit and the Pendulum" was an audacious choice that wound up being more interpretive dance than theatre, and may have been somewhat opaque to anyone unfamiliar with the source material. "The Cask of Amontillado" suffered from giving Montresor a reason for his actions; it's a much more sinister tale if his motivations are unclear. The cast was mostly solid, but the real standout was Cassandra Meyer, most notably as The Devil in "Never Bet the Devil Your Head," which is a cautionary tale for us all.
And then we stumbled out into the night to discover our car had been ticketed for a parking violation. Thank you very much, Boston PD, for your utter lack of "Residents Only Parking" signs. Other than that one glitch, it was a reasonably satisfying night.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}