The Completely Fictional - Utterly True - Final Strange Tale of Edgar Allan Poe is an intriguing new work by Trinity Repertory Company resident actor Stephen Thorne. The production is directed by Curt Columbus and is playing at Trinity Rep through June 5, 2011.
Stephen Thorne's original three-act work explores the final mysterious days of Poe. Through a series of flashbacks and fever dreams, Thorne has Poe conduct his own final accounting. If one forges a national reputation for himself as a poet, but dies at age 40, after a week-long drunken black-out; are you still a success? Further, does Poe, for himself, exist outside of his work?
"The fever called 'Living' is conquer'd at last"; wrote Poe. In his rich performance, Brian McEleney, as Poe on his deathbed, delivers the line as a truth he hopes to believe.
In Act One, we watch as Poe engages Mlle. Vladimir (played with more than just a touch of camp, by Angela Brazil), a mesmerist who is experimenting on a terminally ill patient, putting him in a suspended trance just before, in hopes of arresting, death. There are some terrific special effects that help convince Poe that perhaps there is a fate worse than death. The scene is creepy, awash with self-aware melodrama.
Poe dramatically confronts his younger self (played dead-on by Trinity / Brown Consortium student Charlie Thurston) in Act Two. The end-of-life Poe blames all of his accumulated troubles on his younger self, deflecting any of the misery he caused his wife Virginia or stepfather to the young, virile version of himself. The young Poe wonders if the bitter drunk that is his older self is qualified to narrate their story.
The homage to Charles Dickens (who was also a devotee of mesmerism), is complete with Fred Sullivan appearing as Dickens, himself. In Act Three, the literary titans ruminate on their individual lives.
As the nebulous light that was Poe's life is extinguished, the singular aloneness of the moment is dramatically increased by clever lighting and set design.
To tell the fictional story of Poe's missing final week, Thorne has used much of Poe's own writing, which is the cornerstone of our perception of the poet, 160 years after his death. Thorne and Columbus were each influenced by the 1960's and 1970's recordings of Poe's stories on vinyl. I have vivid memories of those recordings. Thorne, Columbus and the Company have made corporeal the creepiness I remember.
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The Completely Fictional -- Utterly True -- Final Strange Tale of Edgar Allan Poe plays at Trinity Repertory Company through June 5, 2011. Tickets range from $21 - $66 and can be purchased at the Box Office, located at 201 Washington St., Providence, RI, by phone at (401) 351-4242, or online at www.trinityrep.com.
Photo: Brian McEleney as Edgar Allan Poe. Photo by Mark Turek. Set Design by Susan Zeeman Rogers,. Costume Design by William Lane. Lighting Design by Keith Parham.
