There may be no better setting to witness the works of Edgar Allan Poe come alive than in the Gothic greatness of Edinburgh’s Old Town. Audience members are welcomed into a cobbled 16th century courtyard and up a narrow, winding stone staircase to a small, square room with hanging chandeliers where actor Stephen Smith writhes in anguish on the floor. This intimate, closed space immediately sets the scene for the sublime horrors of the show, as the audience is sucked into the mind of the tortured character in a trapped, suffocating space.
In this rendition of Poe’s short stories The Tell-Tale Heart and The Pit and The Pendulum, Smith narrates and performs unedited versions of the original works, transforming them into live monologues that preserve the language of the source material so eminent to Poe fans. Through his minimalistic set-up, bloody and tattered costumes, and sparse, yet salient music, the gravity of Poe’s work is presented in its full terrifying glory.
Smith’s acting was truly entrancing. His understanding and presentation of the layered nature of the characters was impressive, and he represented the conflicting nature of their dark and tormented minds through incredibly controlled facial expressions; subtly twitching when a character was madly excited, or creating deep terror in his eyes as The Pit’s prisoner was ruthlessly tortured. His voice further elevated this, with off-putting sudden changes of intonation, squeals or shrieks, while maintaining a deep musicality in the rhythm of his voice that made the stories more than captivating to listen to.
These macabre stories felt more frightening and psychologically intimidating as Smith brought to them an acute sense of realism. The disturbed minds of the characters were brought alive through his effort; really showing their self-sabotaging nature. It was difficult to decipher if what the characters saw was ‘true’ or not – but what this performance made clear was that it didn’t really matter. What the true horror was was what the characters believed to have happened in their reality; and seeing them suffer in the flesh created the feeling that this could also happen in our reality, and not just in Poe’s.
Smith frantically grasps at your heart, into your deepest fears and understanding of human horrors, and brings it down to new depths with him.
One Man Poe is running until 29 of August at Riddles Court. Buy tickets here.
Image by Shay Ronan, provided for press use.
