His marriage at 26 to his 13-year-old cousin didn’t matter. Nor did his tempestuous life style or literary influence or any of the other concerns that juice graduate students in English. He was Edgar Allan Poe, and they were local teenagers reading him for reasons of their own.
I’m referring to Drew Petriello, Josh Gregory, Sabrina Bounds and Nick Terry. All are thespian apprentices directed by Eve Hammond as part of Driftwood’s investment in theater’s future at the Wade James. All put aside skateboarding, video games and roaming the mall to put on “Pages of Poe.”
Would that community theater everywhere and always was as refreshing.
Picture a bare stage gone dark and four spotlights, each on a teen actor seated on a kitchen chair and reading from a script. Now imagine them taking you into the twisted world of a man tortured by his young wife’s premature death.
That, dear friends, is precisely what these teens accomplished, each in their own way.
Bounds, the lone girl, swooned through a young lover’s descent into madness. Never mind “The Raven’s” classical elements or Gothic structure. Never mind Terry’s lukewarm assist. Adolescent girls savor the sadness of love doomed.
For the guys, it was blood, guts and gore.
A diseased and party-crashing stranger infecting everybody lit up Gregory like a Christmas tree. I swear he was there when “The Masque of the Red Death” worked its particularly fiendish, black magic. Not so with his “Annabel Lee.” Love even the angels are jealous of seemed anything but his favorite theme.
“The Tell-Tale Heart’s” dismemberment of a dead body sent Petriello into pure rapture. Dude, I’m worried about you.
I don’t say emphasis was never misplaced or all words were pronounced correctly or Poe’s convoluted constructions were always easy to follow. I do say love of story came through. I look forward to more.
This special production, along with Driftwood’s Main Stage and Alternative Stages productions, make for a community theater moving through these troubled times nicely. Cause for taking heart, don’t you think.
Reactions? Comments? Email Dale Burrows at entopinion@heraldnet.com or grayghost7@comcast.net.
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