Hollwood Fringe Review: One Man Poe

Four Tales of Mystery and Imagination staged with grimly convincing dread

What can we say about yet another one-man Poe production? Quite simply: no matter how many you have seen before, this one is mandatory viewing for all those desirous of a quick trip to the crypt for another sip of Amontillado. *

Poe’s first-person narratives seem tailor-made for solo performance, especially the murderous confessions, which provide an all-too-intimate connection between audience and actor as the perpetrator details his ghastly deeds. On top of this foundation, actor-director Stephen Smith builds a set of four distinct performances that bring the characters to haunting life, enhanced with effective sound design and lighting cues. Poe fans will surely applaud, and even the uninitiated will feel a shudder or two.

Footnote:

• “The Cast of Amontillado” is actually not one of the stories in this production. We just could not resist the turn of phrase.

One Man Poe Review: Two Pairings of Terror

One Man Poe offers a quartet of tales divided into two shows. Each show runs approximately one hour, without interruption. The only “intermission” is Smith’s onstage costume and makeup changes, which at first seem a questionable choice demanded by the constraints of the one-man production. Fortunately, the gambit pays off by providing a buffer between each performance and by allowing the audience to view Smith’s miraculous transformations – which, if they did not take place before your eyes, might fool you into thinking a second actor was involved.

Stephen Smith as the murderer in “The Tell-Tale Heart”

Stephen Smith in “The Pit and the Pendulum”

Show 1 includes “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Pit and the Pendulum.” The former is probably Poe’s finest tale of terror – lean and direct, fever pitched from beginning to end – and Smith makes the most of it. The decision all actors must make is how much madness to display while depicting a character who repeatedly denies his madness. Smith belies the character’s verbal protestations with a carefully calibrated twitchiness – just enough to betray the reality lurking behind the mask of sanity while gradually building to a crescendo suiting the breathless conclusion.

Comparatively speaking, “The Pit and the Pendulum” is a less intense experience and not a personal favorite of ours when it comes to live renditions. Nevertheless, Smith brings the story’s narrator to life as he endures the malicious tortures of the Inquisition.

Stephen Smith as the alcoholic narrator of “The Black Cat”

Stephen Smith as the mournful narrator of “The Raven”

Show 2 consists of “The Black Cat” and “The Raven.” Smith, who is British seems to let his own accent come through a bit more in this pairing of animal titles, but we emphasize the word “seems” because the two characters sound completely different. The former made us think of a working-class Dubliner; the latter was more of an erudite Englishman. As always, part of the fun of performing Poe is that the author left so many details (nationality and even name) to the imagination, allowing the actor to fill in the blanks.

“The Black Cat” provides another nameless narrator confessing to murder but at much greater length than the one in “Tell-Tale Heart,” trading the condensed impact of the former for something more in-depth – a philosophical meditation on succumbing to evil impulses. The character expounds at length on his descent from a once genial disposition into the depths of rage and homicide, and his rationalizations for his actions are all the more compelling because they are far from convincing; basically, he brings his own destruction on himself while blaming alcohol and a spirit of “perverseness” that compelled him to do things for no reason other than that he knew he should not. It’s a riveting story – and triggering for animal lovers – with just the right touch of superstition regarding the titular feline, who may or may not come back from the dead for revenge, leaving it up for the viewer to decide upon his/her own personal head canon. Smith’s performance traces the character’s arc as it trends ever downward, and in a bold touch he throws the climactic final line away almost as an afterthought. It’s as if the character, his soul unburdened by telling the tale, has lost the need for melodramatic histrionics and barely feels the need to explain the fact that betrayed him to the police.

“The Raven” is a personal favorite of ours – as a poem; however, we have seldom if ever warmed to dramatic renditions. In this case, Smith certainly nails the mournful character’s masochistic compulsion to ask questions which he knows will yield only the same unwanted answer from the titular bird; nevertheless, for us, the poem’s effectiveness comes from the mesmeric power of its repetitive rhythms, which tend to be diminished when dramatic emphasis interrupts the poetry. Still, Smith makes an interesting choice in depicting the narrator as a elderly man, suggesting that he has been mourning the “lost Lenore” not for weeks of months but for a lifetime, adding an extra edge to the tragedy. (On the other hand, Mrs. Hollywood Gothique opines that the poem is more romantic when the narrator is young and handsome.)

One Man Poe Review: Conclusion

We have seen Poe done many times before but never done better. Except for one or two virtually unnoticeable tweaks, One Man Poe offers the author’s texts as written. What makes them work on stage is not new dramaturgy but Smith’s well-crafted and variegated performances, which brings the characters’ “long agony” to life, especially when they are confessing their heinous deeds directly to us.

For such a low-budget effort, the production is quite effective. The costume changes distinguish the characters from each other, and the soundscape adds just the right accents (like the beating of a dead man’s heart and the Raven’s repetitive cry of “nevermore!”), which foster the illusion of a invisible world hiding behind the performance.

Fans of macabre fiction in general and Poe in particular will enjoy more than a “few moments of delirious horror” while experiencing One Man Poe.

One Man Poe Trailer & Photographs

Stephen Smith as the murderer in “The Tell-Tale Heart”

Stephen Smith in “The Pit and the Pendulum”

Stephen Smith as the alcoholic narrator of “The Black Cat”

Stephen Smith as the mournful narrator of “The Raven”