In his short but eventful life, Edgar Allan's Poe name became a byword for the Gothic horror stories which continue to entice and terrify readers nearly two centuries on. A master of storytelling, suspense, irony and imagery; Poe's ability to conjure dark worlds of visceral petrification is unmatched. He is the Godfather. The OG. The GOAT.
An absolute, immediate and passionate interpretation of the master of storytelling
Stephen Smith, himself no mean storyteller, recreates four of Poe's classic tales throughout the month: and the combinination of The Tell Tale Heart and The Pit and The Pendulum is inspired. In the first piece, we meet a madman, trying his hardest to convince us of his sanity, whilst explaining the meticulous details of a murder he committed. Smith slides from apparent normality to murderous intensity with an almost gleeful reverence for his actions; his psychological descent incrementally imagined with eerie and underplayed believability.
The pressure is then cranked up in The Pit and The Pendulum, as a prisoner from the Spanish Inquisition pits his wits against a range of torture devices which test his mental state more than his physical. Here, Smith really gets to test his horror chops, seething and writhing with terror at his likely fate: eyes bulging, brow sweating, chest pumping.
This is a particularly exhausting watch that brings an audience absolutely into the nightmarish world created by Poe and interpreted with gusto by Smith. We live each moment with the prisoner, seeing and feeling the hypnotic motion of the pendulum as surely as if we too were bound under its threatening movemention.
The Fringe is never devoid of solo shows interpreting classic texts, but it would be hard to find one so absolute, committed, immediate and passionate in its delivery. And Riddle's Court is the perfect repository for such a gut-wrenching challenge to how our own imaginations connect with menace and torment.
