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Kris Rothstein's Blog

Nevermore Revisited

Kris Rothstein

Nevermore is a musical spectacle investigating the lifestory of Edgar Allan Poe - as he might have seen it or told it himself - so very inspired by Poe's particular aesthetic. It is fantastically odd and dreamlike but at times it is a little pedestrian and the singsongy musical numbers and constant exposition are not as strange as the staging might have us believe.

I like the fact that creators Jonathan Christenson and Bretta Gerecke have tried to do something different and stylized with the musical format. I was willing to go along with the experiment, which aims to be be a bit dark and weird but also a crowd pleaser, but I kept waiting for something resembling a dramatic scene instead of just funny poses and recitations of biographical details. I did like the punky/goth sets, choreography and costumes which were inventive and darkly beautiful.

Poor old Poe does seem to have been dealt a rough hand and I felt a little bad for him that he had to endure his troubles and sing about them as well. "All our days are trances and all our nights are dreams."

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