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CONTACT THE ENTERPRISE Jocelyn Robinson, News editor jrobinson@heraldnet.com

A demon in his view

By Dale Burrows
For The Enterprise

Imagine the deviltry.

Here was an actor terrifying audiences after teasing them into the nightmarish world of Edgar Allan Poe.

Where is the showmanship?

In the actor’s grip on reality, I say.

The actor is Duffy Hudson; also, a writer, professor and filmmaker out of New York City. His show is a one-man tour de force titled “In the Shadow of the Raven” and booking engagements right and left, coast to coast.

The pity is, “Raven” wound up its run at Edmonds’ Wade James Theatre last weekend. The marquee out front bragged, “Catch a Rising Star.” They weren’t kidding.

Why so?

Hudson doesn’t glorify the early 19th century literary figure that looked at life eye-to-eye and saw a demon looking back. The man was warped. There is nothing there to emulate.

Poe’s writing, on the other hand, is another kettle of fish. The man stimulated gothic fiction and pioneered detective fiction, not to mention his sizable contributions to literary criticism and unique slant on romantic fiction in poetry and prose. “If I wasn’t writing, I was reading,” he said of himself. This dude lived in his head.

The marvel is Hudson as Poe: the man, the myth, the mess and the writing.

Appearing on a bare stage with a kitchen chair, Hudson rises up out of a dead sleep, as if from the other side.

His purpose?

To address a ladies literary society.

Mind you, here was a famous Southern gentleman, born and bred, known, in polite society, to rile men and charm ladies. The ham is in his element and making the most of it.

Hudson reads. He gesticulates. He sobs. He whines. He raves. He screams at hell, falls to his knees and looks to the heavens. He laughs. He cackles. No man in his right mind can behave like that and live with himself. Poe reveled in it. Ladies loved him for it.

Yet, there is no denying the magic of “The Raven,” “Annabelle Lee” and “The Tell Tale Heart.” Poe puts it in. Hudson gets it out. The effect is dazzling.

I don’t say Hudson changes anything outside the world of theater.

Funny thing about Hudson’s readings, they made Poe’s chamber of horrors real inside the Wade James. Outside, in the daylight, a quote from Hudson during the Q & A after his performance, came to mind.

The quote is from “Alone,” a poem Edgar wrote near the end of his life. Summing up his life’s experiences, the whole kit and caboodle, joys and sorrows, loves and hates, ups and downs, everything added up to the face of fate or the universe of god or who or what runs the show as “…that of a demon, in my view.”

Theater can make you reach; don’t you think?

Reactions? Comments? E-mail Dale Burrows at entfeatures@heraldnet.com.