If the one man show, Nevermore: an Evening with Edgar Allan Poe starring Jeffrey Combs ever comes to your town, GO SEE IT!
Trust me on this. You will never read Poe the same again.
Combs is a brilliant actor and I have to give him the highest credit, actor to actor, because there is nothing more dangerous than an interactive play. If the crowd doesn't play along with you, nothing...NOTHING works.
It's like playing to a room full of soggy corpses. Just silence except for the horrible drip, drip, dripping. I shudder with the memory.
It's an amazing, beautiful, heartbreaking evening with America's first mad poet. Oh, Poe is definitely an American creation. Our own first completely overlooked genius. Crushed by poverty and his own hubris, he never had a chance. Poor bastard.
Combs also read The Tell-tale Heart with all the intensity of a madman. He held a lit candle in one hand for most of the reading and waved it around with such ferocity, I worried his coat would catch fire.But that's probably just the Mom in me.
And, the poetry. Jesus. The Bells. I always hated that poem when we were forced to read it in school. After watching Combs perform it in a manic, drunken rage, I will never hear it the same again.
I'm not a poetry fan. Reading it has never been my thing but hearing it performed, oh man, THAT could make a poetry lover out of me. Hearing the sad longing of Anabel Lee and the angst of Dream Withing a Dream, shit, even a white trash public school deviant like me could get teary eyed. And the Raven. Damn. That poem is scary! Scary and sad...so, desperately...sad. I just wanted to give the melon headed lug a giant hug...and a dose of Prozac. Seriously. Thank God for modern medicine.
Here's some links. Check them out. And if the chance ever arises for you to see this show, grab it. Trust me.
http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/cult-hero-jeffrey-combs-throws-a-unique-celebration-for-crazy-genius-edgar-allan-poes-203rd-birthday/Content?oid=2734865
www.jeffreycombs.com
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