By Aly Greaves Amidei, John Henry Roberts, Cara Beth Heath
At Strawdog Theatre, 1806 W. Berenice Ave. Tickets Strawdog.org, $40-$50. Info 773-644-1380. Runs Through: Oct. 31
Strawdog Theatre's new immersive theater experience, Masque Macabre, sews together 14 different storylines from Edgar Allan Poe at a time of year when one's thirst for the macabre longs to be slaked and phantasmagoric thrills beckon the inner imagination. Directed by Anderson Lawfer, Janet Howe, and Eli Newell, if there is one thing Masque Macabre is strong on, it's spectacle and mystery.
But do you know your Poe? Do you really know your Poe? Playwrights Aly Greaves, John Henry Roberts, and Cara Beth Heath do, and not only draw upon Edgar Allan Poe standards, like "The Masque of Red Death" and the "Cask of Amontillado," but also lesser-known Poe works, "Berenice" and "William Wilson," among others. That type of fanatical devotion to Poe's works may be the key to truly appreciating Strawdog's efforts and not knowing Poe threatens the viewer with more of a hodgepodge of experience than with anything really dark from within.
To be sure, every effort has been made to update and contemporize Poe's stories to make them more accessible and visceral. The show begins in "The Masque of Red Death"only the Prince of the short story, who summoned all his followers to ride out the plague in his sealed-off castle, is now a spoiled, entitled billionaire Preston ( Henry Greenberg ) of an international conglomerate. His guests are to the masque are the audience themselves. Berenice ( Shaina Schrooten ) is now the chicly dressed lover of Eli Lagaeus ( Andrew Bailes ), the featured artist whose mixed media and video work adorns the party space. William Wilson ( Adam Hinkle, Brian Hinkle ) is a gadfly celebrity vlogger, recording the event for his millions of viewers. An imperious master of ceremonies, who demands all refer to him as "The Viceroy" ( Julian Stroop ) directs the audience to be as obedient and tractable as the rest of Preston's entourage. Everything has been done to marry the Gothic world that Poe drew upon of debauched and decaying aristocracy to a 21st century where a new gilded oligarchy rears its ugly head and the person with the most clicks wins.
If there is mastery in that audacious opening, the show flattens once its dialogue, for all the intrigues, and recriminations among Preston's entourage as the evening advances, begins to sound like a jaded episode of "Gossip Girl." Far more fascinating becomes the opportunity to observe the crowd, as it huddles around the sight of a man being interred alive or around a fight, mano a mano, to the death. Mutilations and mayhem aside, it is the audience that becomes the most disturbing spectacle of the entire evening.
To house that spectacle and give it shape, the space for Strawdog's immersive theater experience is almost another character. Based on the different colored rooms in "The Masque of Red Death," it is a compellingly eerie maze of atmospheres ( Claire Chzran, Shelby Arndt, and Daniel Friedman, co-lighting design ) and set pieces ( Tom Burch, scenic design, Lacie Hexom prop design, and Mike Sanow, Technical Director ). The video displays, which are supposed to be Eli's handiwork, induce paranoia, wonder, and sometimes revulsion ( Kyle Hamman, video/media design ) and may, indeed, deserve their own curated art show. It's a sophisticated haunted house, wherein the strangest and most troubling monsters are ourselves.