Delightfully dark, heartbreakingly comic, playfully perverse, beautiful and grotesque – Nevermore: The imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe is a whimsical and chilling musical fairy tale for adults.
The line between fact and fiction in this tale is slim, dreams function as reality – and just like in Poe’s work life and death are blurry. Bizarrely beautiful and wonderfully witty, Nevermore uses haunting song, poetic storytelling and surreal imagery to explore the events that shaped Poe’s career and ignited his lifelong battle with “visions dark and sinister.”
Playwright / Director Jonathan Christenson pays homage to Poe’s style, opening the piece slowly and allowing the actors to include pregnant pauses during key moments effecting either planned tension or a feeling of discomfort which adds to the mood. Other references to Poe’s body of work are found in the dialogue, story and set dressings, and may be as subtle as a single line. Fans of Poe will recognize elements of The Tell-Tale Heart, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Raven and The Black Cat written into the script.
