onstagepittsburgh.com: Pittsburgh Public Theater takes on Edgar Allan Poe’s famous macabre short story in their latest heart-pounding production of A Tell-Tale Heart. The Pittsburgh-centered adaptation of this classic story is a spine-chilling tale that is the perfect activity for a chilly autumn night.
4 comments:
When I saw Tick Tick Boom I saw an ad for this in the program and I knew I wanted to see it. I’ve always been a big Poe fan. My dad bought me a collection of his poems and stories for christmas when I was around 10 (I was a very macabre 10 year old) and I loved them. If I have the time I would absolutely love to go see this. I am really interested to see how the reimagining of the time period impacts the story itself. I often find that stories are set in a time period for a reason and when people try to modernize them it doesn’t go well, but that isn’t always the case so I would love to see how they do it. I liked how up close and personal the theater looked. Tell Tale Heart is a very personal story. You are inside the mind of the man going insane and thus you are inherently close to him. I think it was very smart of this show to keep the audience cozy as well.
I have read A Tell-Tale Heart several times in English class, and I really enjoy it. I think it is a really compelling story that has quite an impact on the reader. I feel like seeing a performance of it would be really interesting, and I would love to go to one one day. However, this performance I’m a little scared about going to because I don’t really know how I feel about being a part of such an intimate viewing experience. I don’t like when actors interact with the audience during the performance because it can feel kind of intimidating, especially with a creepy story like this one. I feel like I would actually get scared, which is not necessarily something that I enjoy. It does seem like the perfect performance for the Halloween season, so I definitely see the appeal. I also like the fact that it is a little bit different from the original story. It makes it feel a little bit more personal.
I didn’t know ‘A Tell-Tale Heart’ was made into a stage adaptation. I’ve always been a huge fan of the gruesome, eerie tales of Edgar Alan Poe. Reading this article, it seems like the director has approached this story in an unconventional setting. Despite not knowing the theatre structure, I think it was a successful choice to stage the play in a basement. As the article suggests, this enforces a strong level of intimacy between the characters and the audience, which would only be beneficial in telling a story like this. I cannot imagine how I would feel sitting in those chairs, listening to a murderer confess his crime to me – I’d probably move around uncomfortably in my seat but too scared to actually stand up and leave! I’m intrigued by the design elements as well – the set seems to have taken a little “cabin-in-the-woods” style, which matches the costume, but I wonder what the design philosophy was!
While I have not read Poe’s A Tell-Tale Heart, I have read other of his works and have really enjoyed his writing style and how he tells stories. I have always been a poetry and short fiction fan, and some of my favorite things to write fall under those literary genres. I also really enjoy immersive theater and being in intimate spaces to experience shows, as I feel more a part of the story. It is incredibly creative to place this show in what is essentially a small furnished basement, and for a show that seems it is storytelling forward, almost sitting around the campfire feel, I think this set design really lends itself to that style. I am interested into what the story is about and how they adapted it from Poe’s original work. I am so incredibly interested in this show and production and hope I am able to see it before it closes.
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