Sing it Again

I first saw Anais Mitchell's Hadestown in 2016, when it was playing Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop. It was such a wonderful show, I saw it again at the National Theatre in London when I was in England visiting my sister.

That production got a bit lost in the cavernous space of the Olivier, a theatre that Iain Mackintosh has named one of the worst theatre spaces designed during the 20th century. When the show opened on Broadway, I did not run out to see it a third time.

However, this year singer/songwriter legend Ani DiFranco joined the cast as Persephone. She sang that role in the show's original concept album, so this casting made sense, and as someone who went to a liberal arts college in the 1990s, I was contractually obligated to see Ani DiFranco on Broadway.

Last night, I finally got a chance to do just that, and DiFranco did not disappoint. Amber Gray originated the role of Persephone on stage, later appearing on Broadway in such musicals as Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 and Here We Are. DiFranco might not be as experienced of an actor as Gray, but she exerts an aura that made Persephone a joy to behold.

Each actor I have seen in the role of Hermes has been completely different, but Jon Jon Briones, who is currently Hermes on Broadway, made the role work for him in a manner that was unique. It probably helped that his real-life daughter Isa Briones is in the show as Eurydice. The tender moments between the god and the mortal became even more tender when audience members recalled that the two performers are actually related.

While I didn't see Jordan Fisher as Orpheus, I had no complaints with his understudy, Brandon Cameron, a swing who made his Broadway debut with this show. Previous performers I'd seen in the role either had amazing voices or were strong actors, but Cameron's singing and acting were both superb. The same could be said for Max Kumangai, who played Hades, though in a manner quite different from Patrick Page, who made the part famous.

If you've never seen Hadestown before, now is a great time to go.

Theatre Spaces 1920-2020

I recently finished reading Iain Mackintosh's new book Theatre Spaces 1920-2020: Finding the Fun in Functionalism. It's equal parts personal memoir, history of modern drama, and fascinating screed on why the way we configure the audience in a physical space matters so immensely.

You might not have heard of Mackintosh before, but anyone who can get Sir Richard Eyre to write the forward to his new book is not to be trifled with. After helping to run Britain's touring Prospect Theatre Company in the 1960s and '70s, Mackintosh joined Theatre Projects Consultants, using his experience with which spaces worked and which didn't to advise companies looking to build or remodel theatres.

Though the title claims to only cover one century, Mackintosh begins by going back to 1870 and the planning of Richard Wagner's Festspielhaus in Bayreuth. Seating for the theatre was to consist of a giant fan shape surrounding a massive proscenium stage and sunken orchestra pit. Originally, there was no elevated mezzanine or balcony, though an upper level was added later. A fan-shaped auditorium works for Wagner's epics, but Mackintosh argues it can be deadly when applied to lighter operas such as those by Mozart.

The book then takes a detour through an even older theatre, the Festival Theatre Cambridge, which was originally designed by William Wilkins in 1814. I had a chance to visit the theatre (now a Buddhist center) back in 2016 at a conference on Regency-era drama held by the Society for Theatre Research. In the 1920s, Terence Gray acquired the theatre and remodeled it, but left intact some of the original stage machinery. Later, he offered Gordon Craig the chance to take over the theatre, have complete artistic control, and do whatever he wanted, but Craig demurred.

Mackintosh treats the older theatre extensively because it illustrates his point that an old-fashioned horseshoe-shaped wraparound suspended over the orchestra seating provides better intimacy than Wagner's giant fan, which has proved so influential. He argues that the thrust stages pioneered by Tyrone Guthrie provide a better alternative to a fan-shaped auditorium, like that of the Olivier at London's National Theatre. When I saw the brilliant musical Hadestown in the Olivier, I was disappointed, especially since the show had been so enjoyable in the much smaller space of New York Theatre Workshop. According to Macintosh, however, almost nothing works in the massive Olivier, which has a stage far too wide and audiences inevitably stretched out far from the action.

Fan-shaped theatres frequently have poor acoustics, in spite of being modeled on ancient Greek stages that can have excellent acoustics when used properly. Mackintosh argues that the massive theatre at Epidaurus is larger than those used by the great classical dramatists of Athens, and was later more than doubled in size by the Romans, who preferred watching spectacle to listening to poetry. Rather than using the fan layout of the Greeks, Mackintosh prefers theatres like London's Barbican, which uses multiple wrap-around levels to fit the whole audience into a smaller area, making sure no one is positioned too far away from the stage.

The book is also kind to historical reconstructions, such as Shakespeare's Globe and the smaller Wanamaker Playhouse attached to it. When the reconstructed Globe was opened, some purists thought it would just be a tourist trap, but in spite of not receiving the large subsidies enjoyed by the National Theatre, Shakespeare's Globe offers cheaper tickets than the NT, and continues to attract young audiences who prefer its uncomfortable seats (or worse yet--standing room) to the comfortable but pricey seats in the Olivier.

Mackintosh also chronicles efforts to save historic theatres, including the Theatres Royal in Bristol, Bury St. Edmunds, and Richmond Yorkshire. When the theatre in Dunfermline, Scotland couldn't be revitalized, its interior was shipped to Sarasota, Florida, where it graced the home of Asolo Rep. Some other theatre cultures were not so fortunate. In a later chapter, the book discusses the wholesale destruction of traditional theatres in China during the Cultural Revolution.

Perhaps a vindication of Macintosh's preference for wrap-around seating is that the Royal Shakespeare Company modified their main theatre in 2010 to provide a thrust stage. I remember seeing a production of As You Like It in the old theatre there in 1996 and being unimpressed. Overall, I think Mackintosh makes a good case.

Top Musicals of the Teens

To close out 2019, I'm making a list of the best new American musicals of the teens. I'm only including new American musicals (so no Matilda) that premiered in New York between 2013 and 2019.

No doubt many people will take issue with some of my choices, and wonder why some shows were left off the list. (Sorry, Allegiance and Amazing Grace! There was only so much room. And I never saw The Band's Visit.) Here they are:

10. Something Rotten - Okay, the egg joke runs a little too long, but this musical send-up of Shakespeare practically had me rolling in the aisle.

9. Fun Home - I honestly hated this show when I first saw it, but that was due to Sam Gold's horrible direction. The more I think about it, though, the more I think it might be Jeanine Tesori's best score yet.

8. Dear Evan Hansen - I have reservations about this show as well, but I still think it's far more clever than the critics who praised it blindly. Plus, it's hard to get "You Will Be Found" out of your head.

7.  A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder - This musical managed to escape from development and copyright-law hell in order to win the Tony in 2014. It remains one of my favorite shows of the decade.

6. Desperate Measures - This Off-Broadway gem in one of the smartest shows of the decade, and it deserves to have a long life on the regional circuit. I never would have thought of turning Measure for Measure into a Wild West musical comedy... but it works!

5. Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 - I saw the Off-Broadway incarnation of this play in 2013, and loved it just as much when I saw in on Broadway four years later. Dave Malloy's music is enchanting, and the show manages to craft a small portion of Tolstoy's novel into a stage show that packs a major punch.

4. Unlock'd - Like Desperate Measures, this show had a brief Off-Broadway run, but needs to be seen by far more people. Its source material, Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock, was equally unpromising for a musical comedy, but in addition to being as witty as Pope, it also manages to find adventure, pathos, and even wisdom.

3. Tamar of the River - This epic piece by Marisa Michelson and Joshua H. Cohen is one of the most ambitious shows to premiere in New York during the teens. Nothing else sounds quite like it, and if you don't believe me, buy the cast album. The story, taken very loosely from the book of Genesis, remains as important today as it was when the show premiered Off-Broadway in 2013.

2. Hadestown - Though I've yet to see the Broadway version of Hadestown, and the London production left me rather cold, when I saw the show at New York Theatre Workshop it blew me away. The cast recording of that production remains a frequently visited place on my iPod, and not just because of Patrick Page's amazing performance of "Why We Build the Wall." Anais Mitchell's play is one of the best explorations of tragedy the American theater has produced in recent years.

1. Hamilton - This choice should come as no surprise. Lin-Manuel Miranda came into his own with this show, crafting both music and lyrics that resonate on multiple levels. Sometimes the show has to play a little fast and loose with history, but rather than being simply a glorification of Alexander Hamilton, it recognizes his flaws, and even pays tribute to the musical's villain, Aaron Burr. Perhaps most movingly, it rescues Eliza Hamilton from the dustbin of history, writing her back into the narrative.

Who will write the top musicals of the '20s? Miranda? Mitchell? Michelson and Cohen? Maybe all of the above.

Not One-Woman Shows

I recently saw back-to-back two plays whose marketing makes them look like one-woman shows. Fortunately, both actually provide a diverse cast telling a story far more interesting than the one I had originally anticipated.

Roundabout Theatre Company's production of Theresa Rebeck's new play Bernhardt/Hamlet plays up the star power of actress Janet McTeer, who portrays the divine Sarah Bernhardt. See one of the great actors living play one of the greatest performers ever in what is probably the greatest role of all time! What more could you need?

Well, whether the play needs anything more, it gives us so very, very much more than that. For one thing, the supporting cast of Bernhardt's production of Hamlet is led by the great actor Constant Coquelin, played by Dylan Baker. Coquelin is more than willing to allow Berhardt to take center stage, despite the fact that he himself has played the role of Hamlet numerous times in the provinces.

Today, Coquelin is most famous for originating the title role in Edmond Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac, and Rostand himself appears in Bernhardt/Hamlet, played by Jason Butler Harner. Rostand is working on a new play, but Bernhardt's antics keep interrupting his writing. The audience can probably guess that the interrupted masterpiece is Cyrano, and Rebeck gives us a duel between two great artists, Berhardt trying to give a great performance, and Rostand trying to write a great play, both of them in the shadow of the great Shakespeare, who looms in the background like the ghost of Hamlet's father.

As if that weren't enough artists for one play, Rebeck also introduces us to the Czech painter and theatre poster designer Alphonse Mucha, played by Matthew Saldivar. Mucha is deservedly famous for his Art Nouveau posters featuring Bernhardt, and his poster for Hamlet was one of his most iconic creations. Perhaps the most memorable performance in the play, however, is by Ito Aghayere, who plays Rostand's wife Rosamond. The historical Rosemonde Gérard has come to be known as a rather second-rate poet in spite of her fame in her own lifetime, and Rebeck turns her into a portrait of a woman determined to make sure others create great art even if she cannot create it herself.

After being delighted by Bernhardt/Hamlet, I went with a little bit of trepidation to New York Theatre Workshop to see Heidi Schreck's new play What the Constitution Means to Me. I loved Schreck's Creature and There Are No More Big Secrets, but the last play I saw at NYTW was an unimaginative piece of garbage, so I was rather afraid I would be disappointed. Fortunately, I was not. Though Schreck's latest work doesn't have the supernatural elements of some of her earlier pieces, it is filled with a magical theatricality that gives it a similar air of the uncanny.

What the Constitution Means to Me is inspired by Schreck's experience as a teenager traveling to various towns to enter contests by the Veterans of Foreign Wars in which high school students gave speeches about the U.S. Constitution. Schreck's mother was a debate coach, and she created a bit of a racket for her daughter, driving large distances so she could enter what were supposed to be regional competitions for scholarship money. It worked, and Schreck was able to pay for her college education with her winnings.

This all sounds like a set-up for a one-woman show, but again, the play provides us with something much more unexpected, and altogether delightful. Schreck is accompanied onstage by actor Mike Iveson, who plays a VFW moderator giving her warning signs when she approaches her time limit and ringing a bell at the end of sections of her speech. Later, Iveson speaks directly to the audience not as a character, but as himself, as Schreck does throughout the piece. Both speak from the heart about not just the troubled history of our nation, but their own troubled personal histories, emphasizing how the personal and the political intersect.

The third performer in the show is a high-school debater, played on alternate nights by Rosdely Ciprain and Thursday Williams. I saw Williams, who charmingly won over the audience, and not surprisingly beat Schreck hands-down in the debate at the end of the show. Get your tickets now. Both Bernhardt/Hamlet and What the Constitution Means to Me are well worth seeing.

This is just to say...

Generally, when I see a good play, I post about it, and when I see something that's bad, I write nothing.

Unfortunately, the New York Theatre Workshop's production of Caryl Churchill's A Light Shining in Buckinghamshire was so irredeemably bad, I really have to say something.

Yes, the lighting design was pretty terrible, right from the moment theatre goers sit down and have stage lights shining right down onto them, blinding the audience. (See, it's a light shining on the audience. Get it? Aren't we clever?)

And yes, the mixing of candle lighting and 17th-century costumes with t-shirts and plastic bags failed to work. (You see? He's wearing a ruff and drinking a bottle of coke onstage to show that it's relevant to today. Aren't we being revolutionary?) Funny how plays like The Secret Theatre are able to make past events relevant to the present without beating the audience over the head with it in a ham-fisted manner.

But what I really need to write about is the tremendous misuse of funds provided by Diana and Joe DiMenna and TDF. You see, the program contained this promising little note:

New York Theatre Workshop gratefully acknowledges the generous support that Diana & Joe DiMenna and TDF TAP Plus have provided to enable the C2 open captioning services. With the tremendous leadership of Rachel Chavkin and her team of designers, a captioning board has been fully incorporated into the design of the production.

What does "fully incorporated" mean? It means that smack in the middle of a set is a glowing display using 1980s technology to display every word of the play in the most uninteresting manner possible. Really? You got all that money, and all you can show for it is one of those visual displays you used to see on bank signs?

When Deaf West did Spring Awakening on Broadway, they included extremely creative projections that popped up on different parts of the set. It was amazing! Hearing audiences got a translation of the ASL being used on stage, and when somebody spoke and there was no ASL, Deaf audiences got to read what the characters were saying. Brilliant!

These designers were obviously not up to the caliber of the folks at Deaf West, and maybe they didn't have the same budget as a Broadway production, but this is not a new issue, people! When Bertolt Brecht wanted to make sure audience members--regardless of their hearing--understood every word of a song, he projected the lyrics onto an old sheet at the back of the stage. I'm sure it was much cheaper than the C2 captioning, and more effective, too!

Brecht had other reasons for using projections, as well, and any time you add an element like projections or electronic captioning into a show, it is going to change the dynamics of the performance. He realized this, and used it to his advantage. The folks at NYTW do not seem to have done this. In fact, they don't seem to have thought the whole thing through at all.

By the way, nowhere in the program did NYTW mention ASL-interpreted performances for the play. As a recent article in American Theatre makes clear, many Deaf people prefer ASL-interpreted performances to open captioning. So what was the real reason for including open captioning at every performance of the play? Was it to "ensure access for any and all in our midst" as the program note stated, or was it really to make hearing people feel smug and self-satisfied while they ignored what Deaf audiences actually wanted?

Regardless of the motivation, it was a failure, and a failure that could have been overcome if NYTW had taken the time to do things right. It's time to end the practice of theatres paying lip service to accessibility, screwing it up massively, and then patting themselves on the back for being socially responsible.

The sheer inanity of this production did give me time to count the empty seats in the rows ahead of me during the second act. It looked like about half the audience left at intermission. Whether this was because of the obnoxiously bad open captioning or due to the production's many other shortcomings, I can't say, but when your massive incompetence chases away half your audience, you are hardly providing accessible theatre.

Next time, NYTW, instead of springing for all that money to install the type of thing I saw in front of malls in 1987, give me $5, a digital projector, and a copy of Microsoft PowerPoint. I guarantee you I could come up with a captioning system that is more creative, less distracting, and more inclusive than what I saw in your theatre.

Best Plays of 2016

There weren't too many good things about 2016, but there were a few stand-out theater productions in New York, so once again I'm compiling a list of the best shows I saw that opened in New York City this past year.

Remember, these are shows that opened in 2016, so I couldn't include Sense and Sensibility, The Woodsman, and some other great plays I saw this year. Here are my picks in reverse order:

10. Blackbird - David Harrower wrote Blackbird more than a decade ago, but the play didn't make its Broadway premiere until this past February. That's a sad commentary on the state of American theater, but better to arrive late than never. Jeff Daniels and Michelle Williams were excellent in this two-hander (or is it?) and the play kept audiences guessing right until the end.

9. Othello: The Remix - This hip-hop update of Shakespeare's tragedy re-imagines the story with a comic twist, but the Q Brothers manage to create a few touchingly dramatic moments as well. This show is still playing at the Westside Theater off-Broadway, and if you haven't seen it yet, get your tickets now! It's only running until January 15th, so you better act fast.

8. The Bacchae - The Faux-Real Theatre Company does some magnificent work re-imaging the Greek classics, and this year's production of The Bacchae at La Mama was no exception. The masks were excellently done, and the moments when they came on and off of the actors were especially powerful. Lynda White's puppets brought added excitement to Euripides' tragedy. Be sorry if you missed it!

7. The Humans - Stephen Karam's off-Broadway hit The Humans transferred to Broadway this year, winning a Tony Award for Best Play in the process. While the cast of The Bacchae was filled with young up-and-comers, this production features veteran actors Reed Birney and Jayne Houdyshell giving performances of a lifetime. The Humans is also closing January 15, so get your tickets if you haven't seen it yet!

6. The Place We Built - Kudos to The Flea for staging this play about a right-wing takeover in Hungary that seems scarily prescient of our own country's position today. Sarah Gancher's script gives a shocking account of recent events in Hungary told through the eyes of a young American filmmaker (played touchingly by Isabelle Pierre). The play's use of music also added tremendously to the performance. Particularly given recent events, we need more plays like this.

5. Widowers' Houses - The Actors Company Theatre is known for their quality revivals of classics, and this co-production they did with Gingold Theatrical Group earlier this year even surpassed expectations. George Bernard Shaw's first performed play doesn't get done much anymore, and this production proved what a shame that is. Widowers' Houses exposes not just the corruption of our economic system, but also how all of us are implicated. More than a hundred years after the play was written, it is still sadly relevant.

4. Puffs - Yes, this show has been around for a while, but it only opened off-Broadway this year, so I'm including it on the list. If you haven't seen it yet, Puffs tells the story of a certain boy wizard during seven increasingly eventful years at a magical school that shall not be named for copyright reasons. The brilliance of this play by Matt Cox is that instead of focusing on Harry and his friends, it gives us an account of three losers at the school who belong to the one house that perpetually comes in last. If you're a Potterhead and haven't seen it... where have you been! Get your tickets now!

3. Hadestown - New York Theatre Workshop's production of Hadestown has got to be the best new musical to come out of 2016. Based on a concept album by Anais Mitchell, the show tells the story of Orpheus and Eurydice against the background of Depression-era rural America. When Patrick Page as Hades asks the musical question "Why do we build the wall, my children?" chills will definitely run through your body. Though the brilliant production directed by Rachel Chavkin is closed, a cast album is being released, and I'm holding out hope that this show will eventually return, perhaps even on Broadway.

2. Butler - Richard Strand's comedy about the Civil War general Benjamin F. Butler has been making the rounds at regional theaters, but when New Jersey Repertory Company brought their production to 59E59, it was the first time New York City audiences got a chance to see the play. Ames Adamson was perfect as the title character in this comedy about how history-shaping decisions really get made. Strand proves that serious topics like war and slavery can be laughing matters after all. Though theater in New York City may be struggling, this production proves that in many places, regional theater is still going strong.

1. A Doll's House - My favorite production this year was Theatre for a New Audience's magnificent staging of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House. Starring Maggie Lacey and John Douglas Thompson, this play could not have asked for a better cast. Director Arin Arbus placed the audience on two sides of the stage, making sure that everyone had an intimate experience with the classic play. This rendition was funny, sexy, and ultimately heartbreaking. Thorvald and Nora's marriage made sense in this version, though that didn't mean it wasn't still doomed from the beginning. Make a note to check out TFANA's shows next year. They could be just as surprising!

Honorable mentions this year go to Mabou Mine's Imagining the Imaginary Invalid and Ivo van Hove's Broadway production of The Crucible. Hopefully 2017 will be a better year, for the theater and for the world!

Hadestown

Last night I saw Anais Mitchell's Hadestown at New York Theatre Workshop. The play gets off to somewhat of a slow start, but it builds to become an emotionally moving reimagining of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth.

Rachel Chavkin, who previously directed Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, helms this production, starring Damon Daunno and Nabiyah Be as the ill-fated lovers. And just so we know they're ill-fated, the fates themselves appear on stage, as a trio of women who provide the role of the chorus.

The burly, bearded Chris Sullivan seems on odd choice to play the god Hermes, but he is surprisingly effective as the show's narrator, guiding us down into the underworld and back again. Make no mistake about it, though--the heart of this show is the immortal power couple of hell, Hades (played by Patrick Page) and Persephone (played by Amber Gray).

I loved Page as the titular king in The Public Theatre's production of Cymbeline in Central Park, and it was great to see him again on stage in the recent revival of Spring Awakening. While I had heard him sing before, never had I heard him like this, dipping down into the lower reaches of a gravelly bass voice. His rendition of "Why We Build the Wall" is nightmarish, and when he later softens at the song of Orpheus, the world itself seems to be changing.

Having a song that can make stones weep is a tall order, but Daunno's trilling falsetto voice works on you like nothing you're likely to hear in a traditional Broadway score. And as Persephone, the magnificent Gray champions the young lovers, both during her spring revels above the earth and throughout her marital strife with Hades below. Gray, who was a replacement for the role of Helene in the original production of The Great Comet, will be reprising that part on Broadway this fall.

But don't wait until then to see her! Hadestown is playing until the end of the month. Catch it while you can!

The Crucible

I just saw Ivo van Hove's Broadway production of The Crucible. Though the modern dress and some directorial weirdness might grab headlines, what really makes this version so remarkable is the honest, straight-forward acting that illuminates how wonderful Arthur Miller's play really is.

While I did not see van Hove's critically acclaimed rendition of Miller's A View From the Bridge, I did see his staging of Susan Sontag's Alice in Bed at New York Theatre Workshop way back in 2000. Like that production, The Crucible features some questionable choices. (A line about nakedness leads to a literal stripping on stage, and one emotional moment is accompanied by hurricane-strength winds.) Still, there is an intensity to the acting that makes familiar material seem fresh.

The set for The Crucible, designed by Jan Versweyveld, is a modern-day classroom, and when the curtain first rises, we see a group of schoolgirls at their desks. The curtain lowers again, and when the play proper begins, one of the girls lies motionless, with her father distraught. Rather than focusing on the girls, though, van Hove chooses not to perform the optional scene Miller cut from the original production, in which Abigail faces John Proctor in the forest. The decision helps to make this production decidedly John Proctor's play, in spite of star performer Saoirse Ronan playing Abigail.

Ben Whishaw, who memorably portrayed John Keats in the film Bright Star, plays Proctor. He manages to be upright, even as he confesses to adultery and wavers on whether or not to sign a false confession. His denunciation of Abigail is particularly powerful, and he mostly has good chemistry with Sophie Okonedo, who plays his wife, Elizabeth Proctor. In the final scene, where Elizabeth often shines, Okonedo's acting is subdued, placing even more emphasis on Proctor.

During a few moments, van Hove stages the supernatural, even though the play is clear that magic spells and flying witches don't really exist. This introduces an ambiguity Miller never intended, but it also makes the audience take the possibility of witchcraft more seriously, perhaps making the actions of extremists in the play more understandable.

This limited engagement is only playing through mid-July, so if you're interested in seeing it, check out the show's website:

The Crucible on Broadway

Poe Comes to Life (and Death) in Nevermore

As much as I enjoyed Red-Eye to Havre de Grace at New York Theatre Workshop last year, the best play I've ever seen about the undisputed master of the macabre was Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe. Canada's Catalyst Theatre brought the show to the New Victory a few years back, and I co-wrote a review of it that appeared in a rather distinguished journal (The Edgar Allan Poe Review).

Imagine my delight when I discovered the production would be back in New York for an off-broadway run at New World Stages. Of course, I had to see it, and what better time than last night, which happened to be Mr. Poe's 206th birthday?

Apparently, the show has had a few tweaks, but it was still every bit as good as I remembered it. Scott Shpeley plays Poe with aplomb, reacting emotionally in a manner that keeps him the center of our attention, even when his character goes through long stretches without any lines. When he does speak, his voice is perfect, and when he sings, it's celestial.

Lindsie VanWinkle plays Poe's mother Eliza. (She's the one wearing the enormous hat you might have seen on posters for the show.) Eliza really was an actress, as Nevermore portrays her, and as stated in the show, excelled in the role of "Little Pickle" in the play The Spoiled Child. VanWinkle plays Eliza with sympathy, but also as a woman more caught up in the theatre than in raising her family.

The play's portrayal of nineteenth-century theatre is delightful, capturing the spirit of the times, especially in showing Fanny and Jock Allan (played by Beth Graham and Garett Ross) as die-hard theatre fans. (Though perhaps I shouldn't mention "die" in discussing a play about Poe!) The theatre had a tremendous effect on Poe, and he even tried his own hand at drama, penning the beginning of a tragedy, Politan.

Poe's family life is frequently discussed, but people often pass over his talented older brother Henry, played in this production by Gaelan Beatty. Scholars sometimes speculate that some of the earlier poems attributed to Poe might actually have been collaborations with his brother, or even written by Henry entirely. The play acknowledges this, portraying both men as fascinated by storytelling and having literary ambitions.

Of course, Nevermore is hardly going for historical realism. Much of the dialogue is sung, and even when it is not, it tends to be in verse. Writer, lyricist, and composer (and director) Jonathan Christenson makes the rhymes flow effortlessly. As a composer, he also deserves kudos, supplying especially wonderful music for settings of Poe's poems, including "Eldorado," "Israfel," and (of course) "The Raven."

The design elements of the play are particularly striking. Production designer Bretta Gerecke provides costumes, sets, and lighting that all work together to produce a goth's fondest nightmare. The elaborate costumes are completely in black and white, yet become lit up in magnificent color. They are also feats of engineering. The coat worn by Ryan Parker as the villainous Rufus Griswold looks almost like a piece of architecture.

My favorite part of the play, both times I saw it, was the love story between the teenage Poe and his neighbor Elmira Royster. Shannon Blanchet is delightfully morbid as Elmira, meeting Edgar in a graveyard where the two fall in love by telling each other macabre tales. When her character returns later on in the play, we feel the excitement that Poe might finally get his happy ending, even as we realize his doom is nigh.

Last time it was in New York, Nevermore had a run that was all too brief. Make sure you get to it now! More information can be found here:

Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe

Red-Eye to Havre de Grace

Last night I had the good fortune to see Red-Eye to Havre de Grace, the fantasia on the death of Edgar Allan Poe currently playing at New York Theatre Workshop.

The piece, originally created by Thaddeus Phillips and brothers David and Jeremy Wilhelm, includes texts not just from Poe's famous poems like "The Conqueror Worm" and "The Raven," but also his late metaphysical work, Eureka, his letters, and essays such as "The Philosophy of Furniture."

Ean Sheehy plays Poe with remarkable physical dexterity, walking on top of suitcases, sitting sideways at an unturned desk, and crawling on top of pianos. The dancer Alessandra Larson plays Poe's dead wife Virginia, and though she never speaks, her presence adds a dangerous ethereal beauty to the piece, whether she is using stilts, sliding down from a suspended bed frame, or crawling out of a grave.

Obviously, this play is not going for strict realism, so it seems only natural when "Annabelle Lee" is sung in French and "Eldorado" is performed in Spanish. This inventive production only runs until June 1, so make sure you catch it before the train leaves the station!

For more information, go here:

New York Theatre Workshop

https://www.nytw.org/