Thanks!

And fulfill that promise it does!

Helen Hayes Award winning playwright, Peter Coy, also directs this production from his Hamner Theater in Nellysford, VA–outside of Charlottesville. His craft, blending what must have been intricate research is clear.

Can art be considered without context? Poe asks and answers this question stating that ‘it matter’s not the condition of the poet’, but Mr. Coy’s work sensitively proves otherwise.

Two remarkable young actors flesh out the tortured life, art and psyche of Edgar A. Poe. The production features a masterful jazz combo and unconventional direction to weave 90 minutes of clowning theatrics, psychological drama, dry humor, jazz standards, and raw sexuality.

It is a dream? Is it hell? Is it his life passing before his eyes? Who cares! It is fantastic!

Jon Cobb, as Poe, embodies the iconic poet and successfully illuminates the development of Poe’s personal life’s effect on his artistic work. The mental and physical gymnastics of this role and his execution of this task is top drawer.

His portrayal is so authentically human and clearly links Poe’s loss of his parents as fundamental to the development of his character and the art work he produced. Heroically, Mr. Cobb bypasses the obvious trap to merely represent Poe as a Vincent Price-ish ghoul. Any fan of the poet will be thrilled as Mr. Cobb leaves you thinking…and laughing…an even maybe a little misty about the permeable boundary between the man and his art.

Patti Finn seems to effortlessly navigate an endless array of women from his life and work. She is captivating and skillful in a uniquely demanding role–a role to which she is so well suited one wonders if it had been written for her! Ms. Finn manages eight fully realized characters—sometimes shifting from one to another within a breath, or with as little as a turn of a head or a gesture of the hand.

As if that is not enough, Ms. Finn, as Eliza, Poe’s mother who apparently was a well-known actress back in the day, also kicks ass as a torch singer, knocking out a host of jazz standards that are intricated into the action. A old-school jazz duo, Bob Bennetta, piano and Jim Meyer, double bass, really bring to life this unusual, yet wierdly logical musical connection between Poe and jazz.

No matter how you think you feel about Poe, you will find this work illuminating new angles of his life, the psychology of attachment and loss in the enduring work of a tortured genius.

I think it lives up to the buzz. It is at once delightfully funny, poignant, shocking, and macabre.

A must-see of the Festival.