Nevermore? Nevermore.

Sunday January 26, 2014

Nevermore by Matt Ritchey, directed by Joshua Carpenter at APEX Theatre 20 has ended.  It ended joyously and sadly, as these things go.  The joy of a fulfilling and successful run.  The joy of finishing a project with new family (and finding that family).  The sadness of endings.  The sadness of partings.

The play, as described in previous entries here, is a "what if" tale that explores what might be if some of Edgar Allan Poe's darker stories were, in fact, semi-autobiographical.  I will not spoil the twists and turns and surprises that await a new audience, but suffice it to say, Poe would have approved.

The final performance, Saturday January 25th, was interesting.  For some in the cast, it was their best performance.  For others, not so much.  The biggest danger in a play such as this, in a venue such as this (a black box theatre) is overacting.  In a small intimate cast in a small intimate venue, "larger than life" can become elephantine.  It's like the difference in a movie of a close-up versus a wide shot.  Bigger might work in the distance, but up close, bigger can be a killer.  As an actor, I have to check myself a lot on this.  Most of my stage acting experience is in the large, proscenium stages.  When I have to go small, it takes an effort.

In the final performance, the author was present, having flown in from Los Angeles ("boy were his arms tired!") Thursday night.  His comments were generally complimentary, always insightful, and sometimes surprising.  One surprising comment concerned my character, Dudley.  Apparently he was supposed to be an over-the-top drunken sot comic relief character.  We, read I, played him more as a real alcoholic with a more sinister twist than comic.  Lenore and Monty he loved.  With this I heartily concur.  They both brought a quality to their work that was genuine, if a little creepy.  Okay, a lot creepy.

Matt Ritchey noted that the whole production was a surprise.  Carpenter's vision was different that his, and he liked it.  Ritchey said, "Everything on the page was there.  Everything on the stage seemed (similar)."  But the character interpretations were very different.  The actor-created backstories he found wonderful, even my twisted one.  "You put your child out there and it takes on a life of its own.  That's a good thing."

For this "child", it has grown and moved on to its next life, somewhere else in the theatre world.  I hope its new family cherishes it as much as we did.  Bon voyage, Nevermore.