Sept 8 at 3:30pm and 7:30pm at the Rotunda, 4014 Walnut St
Sept 10 at 7:30pm and 9:30pm at the Rotunda, 4014 Walnut St
Sept 11 & 12 at 8pm at Christ the King Prayer Chapel, 4233 Chestnut Street (Not Wheelchair Accessible)
Can E.A. Poe survive a brush with madness (or two hit-men), off a train, in Philadelphia? Written by three-time PA Arts Council recipient William Burrison and based on a true account. With live music by Ross Lipton, and a preliminary short play, The Ship That Stops, by Colin Wolfe.
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"Poor Poe" dramatizes one of several brushes with madness or alcohol related travel trouble Edgar Allan Poe had -- this oneas recounted by a friend in Philadelphia, the prominent engraver and publisher John Sartain. Instead of settling as conventional historic narrative, the play externalizes Poe's paranoid inner state -- a recurring sense of being targeted and pursued by ruffians (which dogged him even to his last fateful episode in Baltimore, as recounted by his deathbed physician, Moran -- a scene portrayed in the last act of the four act four hour epic by Burrison, not part of this Fringe cycle). While exploring this semi and subconscious fearful terrain, "Poor Poe" also explores the question: how can we know the historical truth? -- In this instance, we only have Sartain's ,memoir account, not Poe's. Thus the playwright tries to imagine Poe's take on the incident -- if he could defend himself in posterity. His ghoulish nightmare train ride sensations, embodied as inner voices that infect Sartain at times as well, partake in this sifting out process, if not much elevating it to a level of absolute clarity or illumination. Adding a dimension of surreality and expressionism to the story are Maggie Blair and Melissa Amanali as the masked train ghouls that just won't rest, use of amp and surprising spaces afforded by the Rotunda and Christ the King, and truly disturbing live music and sound by Ross Lipson (piano), with his collaborator, Darian Scatton (harp). These modernist experimental musicians will also set the mood and heighten emotion for Colin Wolfe's short play, "The Ship That Stops" -- a work worthy of comparison to Poe, Kafka, Calvino, and Borges. For this, one might imagine a harbor town, or, indeed, island, that harbors a folktale concerning a magical ship that appears, arrives, only in relation to the discontent of a native young maiden... -- At least, that's the angle given by a senior local "odds and ends" shopkeeper, "Mr. Terrigal." And, on that, best to describe no further story line...
Use of space amp, lighting, with mag light effects added; live piano, harp, and other instrumental music; some mask or mask-like imagery.
