Poe's 'Fearscape' haunts Cabaret

Although Fearscape doesn't assault you with pulse-pounding terror, it does deliver the kind of spine-tingling chills that stick around long after the performance has ended. Director Anjali Sachdeva, SY '00, stages the production in three different segments: "Lenore," a dramatic adaptation of Poe's "The Raven"; a musical interlude; and "Matters of the Family."

"Lenore" tells the story of Guy de Vere (Cem Ozdeniz, SY '02), who jealously murders his lover, Lenore (Elena Graceffa, TC '03), over an imagined affair. The play opens with a rather corny strangling scene, but improves from this point, developing into a moderately chilling rendition of Poe's haunting poem. Graceffa steals the show with her ghostly Lenore, a nearly silent but ever-present apparition. Her dramatic facial expressions give her character the eerie intensity befitting a vengeful lover. Staging details such as the sickly, glittering skin of the actors also add to the play's impact.

"Lenore," however, is a production that begs more distance from its spectators. The intimacy of the Cabaret makes the actors real, imperfect people rather than ghostly apparitions, detracting from the overall effect.

Whereas "Lenore" overwhelms the theatre's dimensions, "Matters of the Family" seems perfectly suited to the intimacy of the space. We are immersed in the life of Albert (Josh Drimmer, DC '03), a man who has recently lost both his parents and has been left to care for his invalid sister, Suzanne (Wesley Mittman, CC '03). Albert struggles to come to terms with his situation, sliding into a drunken melancholy as the play progresses. An empty wine glass filled with cigarette butts, abandoned on a bedside table, visually communicates the bleak desperation of his existence.

Suzanne gives the play its chilling power with her masterful rendition of a catatonic invalid, moved to depraved laughter by "Little Miss Muffet," but otherwise utterly oblivious. The play reaches its tragic conclusion with a piercing scream, then darkness engulfs the audience. Fearscape leaves us, if not terrified, at least with a healthy respect for life's darker side.

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