An Evening With Edgar Allan Poe

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

For five years Hunger Artists performed An Evening With Edgar Allan Poe at the Byers-Evans House during the spookiest time of the year. This year the Muse of Spooks shined a bright light on this young energetic theatre company allowing them to perform at The Denver Victorian Playhouse.

From left: Peter Trinh, Dell Domnik, Amy Ratliff, Amanda Van Nostrand, Jeff Simpson, Ben Koucherik Photo by: Stacey Nelms

Adapted by Janet Chamberlain, Maggie Stillman, Daniel Langhoff, Stacey Nelms, and Joan Staniunas, 16 of the lyrical Poe’s phenomenal poems become a complete unit for a formal staged reading.

Director Stillman’s insight and ingenuity feeds into the cast with a sharp eye for a unified creative direction. The six actors treat each poem with the rhymic musicality tempered for each piece.

What they do is extremely difficult, and should not be taken for granted, With a formal staged reading, each actor must at all times be keenly aware of each other’s place on stage to work in synchronized oneness. Miss one beat, and it will stick out like a sore thumb. The six not only work as a choreographed unit, they frequently mix the formal reading by breathing life into animated characters. The result: a stunning evening with Edgar Allan Poe.

The six move easily and professionally from one poem to the other including The Cask of Amontillado, Annabel Lee, The Masque of The Red Death, The Pit and the Pendulum, Lenore, and The Raven.

As a Company, they begin with Dreamland, moving smoothly into Amontillado with Ben Koucherik and Peter Trinh wearing a court jester’s hat. Koucherik’s powerful voice, controlled physicality, and expressive eyes match Trinh’s subtle piercing expressions.

Jeff Simpson and Amy Ratliff lead into Annabelle Lee with a soft power boomeranging throughout the theatre.Koucherik, Dell Domnick, Ratliff, Simpson, and Trinh raise the hair on the nap of the neck for the well-known Pit and the Pendulum.

On a simplistic but highly effective set designed by Nelms that snugly fits the needs and wants of each piece, she provides some subtle but striking elements.

For Lenore and The Raven, Domnick sits in a red velvet robe in a leather chair before a fireplace. Domnick knows how to break the heart with the lament over the loss of the beloved Lenore. Over the fireplace hangs a large portrait of Lenore in a gilded ornate gold frame. Dressed in a black hooded clock, Amanda Van Nostrand hovers over the leather chair as the ghost of Lenore. It is Van Nostrand’s portrait hanging over the fireplace, tying the piece neatly together. Trinh joins the two in The Raven pointing toward the unnerving presence of the strange black bird haunting Poe’s reminder of Lenore.

Each piece is announced separately so the audience knows when and where the transition comes. Van Nostrand’s soft voice works well for her on her pieces, but sometimes cuts off the title of the poems. If anything in this production needs extra attention, it is the announcement of the poems, which the audience needs to hear so they do not have to guess, or try to search the program in the dark.

At the beginning of Act Two, the Company takes the rhythm and sound of The Bells to heart. You hear the haunting deliberations along with celebratory bells in their voices.

The Black Cat by the Company takes the audience on an intriguing and frightening journey into the relationship of one with his love-hate relationship with his cat that nearly stops the heart and chokes the throat. In the midst of the journey, Trinh lends his eyes and expressions to the cat. On the one hand, he is absolutely adorable with cat like movements. On the other hand, he gives revenge to the cat with stern deliberations. He captures the cat with loyalty and heartbreak. To be honest, it is difficult to keep the eyes off of him.

Dressed in a long red satin gown, Ratliff takes on the humorous yet pointed piece, How To Write A Blackwood Article. Powerful in voice and stance, she reflects humor, sophistication, ego, and writing for a policy of a magazine that doesn’t always buy into its own decisions. With the addition of Van Nostrand, Domnick, and Koucherik, Ratliff’s power gets strong support.

On stage left hangs another ornate gilded gold frame with a black scrim covering the frame’s interior, another subtle but poignant addition to Nelms’ set. When the house lights are up, the frame looks smoky and empty. With the stage lights, the frame can be seen through, providing an eeriness all on its own.

A new addition this year to the production, the setting is for The Oval Portrait depicted by Trinh, Simpson and Van Nostrand in a long white dress as the lady in the portrait. Trinh tends to rush his words swallowing some before they even reach the air, confusing speed with intensity. It is a powerful piece with Simpson intercepting as the artist, and will be even more powerful when Trinh takes a breath and embodies the evocative lament with his entire being instead of his throat.

The rhythmic lyrical words of Poe create a magnificent rhythm of a master wordsmith. The cast’s performance becomes a choreographed concert in music with notes of a different scale.

Hunger Artist’s production definitely deserves attention from a master of the English language, who can look into the macabre dark side of life with horrendous brutal detail compelling breath taking attention, combined with a cast of actors who have successfully climbed inside the mind of Poe.

Would that Hunger Artists could continue to live at the Denver Victorian Playhouse. For their next project the Hunger Artists Company is excited to present a full-staged production of The Shape of Things by Neil LaBute at the John Hand Theatre in February. Wherever they are, they definitely deserve higher visibility.