Spike Pulice and Chloe Reyes (Photo by Sej Gangula)
Reviewed by Martίn Hernández
Ophelia’s Jump
Through October 29
RECOMMENDED
What better way to ring in the Halloween dread than a musical biography of the U.S.A.’s most celebrated master of the macabre? With music, lyrics, and story by Jonathan Christenson, the show melds fact and fiction with a lush operatic score that runs the gamut of genres. Director/choreographer Beatrice Casagrán sets an eerie tone — from their own elegant staging, to Mia Valdez’s goth makeup design, to Michael Mullins’s period costumes and Sheila Malone’s suitably grim sepia-toned projections and complementary lighting, the show is a spooky and loving tribute to Edgar Allan Poe and his legacy.
On a rainy boat ride to New York, a distraught Edgar (Spike Pullice), sans hat and coat and soaked to the skin, is befriended by The El Dorado Players, an itinerant troupe of bizarre actors. When one of the Players (Graham Kurtz) mentions he once saw a performance by Edgar’s critically acclaimed actress-mother Eliza (Vanessa Lauren Gamble), Edgar implores the Player to tell him more. The Players thus embark on a theatrical rendering of Edgar’s life, one filled with abundant heartbreak and trauma.
Edgar’s drunken actor father David (Kenn Schmidt), prone to bad reviews, abandons the family. Eliza dies of tuberculosis and her children — Edgar, the eldest Henry (Gerry Tonella), and the youngest Rosalie (Chloe Reyes) — are split up and sent to live with different families. Edgar’s foster mother Fanny Allan (Reyes) — from whence he got his middle name — is loving ,but her spouse Jock (Schmidt) is distant and eventually cuts Edgar off for his wastrel ways at college. Edgar finds love with Elmira (Molly Billman) but later his daily letters to her are unanswered. And so it goes, with Edgar finding booze a constant respite for his inner pain.
Edgar’s frequent setbacks, however, plant the seeds for his famed poems and stories. “The Premature Burial” is based on a tale Elmira tells Edgar in a graveyard, while “The Tell Tale Heart” arises from a revenge fantasy — or is it? — about his heartless foster father. Edgar’s vocal presentation of “The Raven,” complete with cast members in bird beaked masks, is a chilling take on his most famous work set to an ominous beat.
It is not all grim stuff; there are tender as well as dark, funny moments along the way., including the hilarious depiction of the Poe children’s birth and Kurtz’s take on Poe’s publishing promoter turned bitter rival Rufus Griswold, (with Kurtz’s lanky frame well suited for his comical movements). Under Janette Combs’ adept musical direction, the well-voiced performers take on multiple roles, with Pullice most effective as the beleaguered Edgar. Most touching are Pullice’s scenes with Reyes, who plays both Fanny and Edgar’s loyal and ill-fated spouse Sissy, who weaned Edgar off the booze and pushed him to be his best.
And, notwithstanding the small stage, Casagrán’s movement work is eloquently grand, with a presentation of the bleak twist at the finale that may well have made Poe proud.
Ophelia’s Jump, 2009 Porterfield Way, Suite H, Upland: Thurs-Sat. 8 pm; Sun., 4 pm; through Oct. 29. Beatrice@opheliasjump.org (Running time two hours and fifteen minutes, including a fifteen-minute intermission.)
