Reviewed by Paul Treasure
Coming as we are into the spooky Halloween season of October, Garrick Theatre has taken advantage of the connections between their current season and the decoration possibilities available. Even before we enter the theatre we are greeted with skeletons and gravestones, and the foyer is very cleverly decorated to resemble a haunted house, with ghostly portraits, macabre bric-a-brac, and lots of cobwebs. While this could easily come across as kitsch, the people responsible have shown they have a good eye for decoration and it is delightfully spooky. A very good precursor for the subject matter on stage.
The play is a retelling of some of the more famous and notorious stories by Edgar Allen Poe. The play takes place in Poe’s study, and we follow Poe as he dreams of the stories that are to make him famous. With the mysterious character of the Raven guiding him through the action. The set is very effective, a unit set painted to look like menacing stonework, like a subterranean chamber in an old castle. It works well and suits the very many settings that it has to convey. The lighting design by Zane Riverfish was dim and very moody, which added a lot to the atmosphere of the piece, although there were many times when it was difficult to see the actors’ faces. A lightning effect at one point was very impressive, although lost a lot of its impact as it went on too long and too regularly. Overall this was a very good-looking production and a credit to all involved.
As the central and linking character of Edgar Allen Poe, Annie Dahri shows a lot of potential. She managed to ground the proceedings very well, resisting the temptation to go too over the top at the mounting terror her character is experiencing. It was a shame that of all the characters hers was the one most often appearing in gloom, as we lost a lot of her facial expressions, which were wonderfully done in the times we could see her clearly.
Of the half a dozen stories retold during the play, the strongest was without a doubt “The Fall of the House of Usher”. As the narrator of the piece, Piper Gibson managed the horror extremely well. She was assured and gave us a very definite build-up over the course of the piece. The actor playing Roderick Usher was the epitome of moody and melancholy, nailing one of the most famous characters in all of Poe. Grey Masters, as Madeline Usher, played the role with a thrilling sense of foreboding and eeriness, which may have been even more terrifying had we been able to see her facial expressions. In the “Hop-Frog” section, Riley Thomas played the title character very effectively, once again downplaying the character’s seething anger. As the King, Kaiden Breen managed the physical requirements of his role very well, although he may have been hampered by being too angry at the start of the scene, giving his character nowhere to go, his being hoisted in the air and what happens after at the end of the scene was very convincing.
As a first play for director Paris Romano Jenner, it showed a lot of promise. They showed a very good sense of blocking and created some impressive stage pictures, which was one of the major strengths of this production. There was an over-arching tendency to have the actors come in with emotions already dialled up to ten which gave them little room for them to move or develop, but this is a misstep that many directors make early on in their careers. It’s an old adage that someone trying to fight back their tears is a lot more effective than someone crying openly, the same principle can be said of a lot of the performances in this show, where a small amount of restraint would have been a lot more effective. More concentration on diction and clarity would also not have gone astray, especially in the scenes where characters were overcome by their emotion. The very good-looking and potentially unnerving rendering of the ”The Raven” was hampered by the feeling that the actors were merely reciting a poem and had little understanding of what they were actually saying. As a first show by a new director, this play showed us a lot of what they are capable of, and I sincerely hope Paris takes on board any constructive criticism they receive, and look forward to seeing what future wonders this very imaginative director brings us in the future.
As hard as the young performers were trying onstage they were let down a little by things outside their control. The front-of-house team could be clearly heard chatting loudly in the foyer during the show. The programme, while listing some of the characters that each actor played, would have benefitted from a breakdown as to who was playing what in each scene, especially as major characters like Roderick Usher and Trippetta were not listed against anyone’s name.
Any youth show, by its nature, should be a chance for young practitioners, whether they be actors, directors or other crew, to learn, grow and hone their craft. Poe: Dreams of Madness gave us the chance to see a lot of young performers strut their stuff onstage, and show us their potential and their promise. Garrick Theatre, TAG, and everyone involved in this show should be immensely proud of what they have achieved, managing to go a long way in pulling off the mood of a potentially difficult piece of theatre. It bodes well for the future of Garrick Theatre, and I cannot wait to see what these talented young performers do in the future.
Reviewer Note: Tickets for this review were provided by the theatre company.
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