21st Century Poe: Moyamensing @ Pleasance Dome

Marty Ross brings his retelling of an episode of Edgar Allan Poe’s life to the stage in 21st Century Poe: Moyamensing, which turns out to be a very loud and disappointing piece that does not convey the genius that is Edgar Allan Poe.

Ross is far too animated in his portrayal of this tale, leaping about furiously as he shouts the lines in an almost frantic fashion. It seems not even he can keep up with himself as he stumbles over words and fumbles with props. It is impressive he has the stamina to keep such a performance up for the whole show.

It would be more impressive if it were necessary in portraying Poe’s state of mind at the time; however it is not. There are subtler ways of conveying this. Ross portrays Poe as a drunk lunatic while only skimming over the real psychological pains that Poe was going through in a very one dimensional fashion.

Credit must be given to the fact that Poe’s real words are used for certain parts – this is obvious in how the script switches tone from time to time, matching the inconsistency of the lighting which does not add anything to the performance. The only consistency comes from Ross’s performance which is the same for every character, loud and frantic meaning the costumes are needed to distinguish one from another.

A poor performance to celebrate a much loved figure. Edgar Allan Poe had a lot more to him than this performance makes out and he deserves more than this as his legacy.