Bottom line, our highest recommendation! Two classic Poe short stories, brought to astounding life on-stage by one of our most talented actors, in a perfect homage to the season.

Full Review:

No holiday is more theatrical than Halloween, with its invitation to indulge our imagination through costume, props, and performance (“Booooo!!!”). So what better way to celebrate it than at a scary, stunningly staged, high-fright homage to the creator of the horror story.

You probably have a vague recollection of Poe’s stories such as the ones presented here: The Black Cat and The Cask of Amontillado. These two one-actor plays re-awaken all that youthful enjoyment of their uncanniness.

You’ll be chillingly scared and eerily spooked.

But these renditions also reveal the works as far more intricate, interesting, and important than merely being the origins of the genre of short horror fiction. They are portrayals of states of mind that challenge everything we assume about ourselves as rational beings.

In The Black Cat, a condemned man is composing his final testament on the eve of his hanging. Why, he is seeking to discover, did he perform the unnatural acts which brought about his own destruction. The answer – Poe’s infamous “imp of the perverse” – calls into question whether we each have within us an irrepressible impulse in this direction – what Freud called the Death Wish.

The Cask of Amontillado, in Mr. Bodine’s expert hands, also reveals itself to be far more than a grotesque tale of revenge. It is a portrait, reminiscent of Browning’s dramatic monologues like My Last Duchess, of the European aristocrat as proto-Fascist: a man in whom the concept of tribal Honor, gone beserk, creates a monster.

The solo performer of these gems, Greg Oliver Bodine, is an actor of extraordinary natural gifts which he has honed to the highest professional acuity. With his agile face he can evoke emotions from scorn and amusement, to horror and despair. He connects with us tangibly, and he completely “inhabits” his characters’ fast-changing moods. These two performances are supreme exemplifications of acting at its highest reaches.

Kudos too to the masterful director, DeLisa M. White, the Scenic/Innovative Designer Richard T. Scott, the Lighting and Sound wizards, Richard Kent Green and Charles Jeffreys, and the costumer, Jeannette Aultz. What a Creative Team!

Bonus Tip: The Workshop Theater Company is a highly serviceable source of affordable, high-quality, off-the-beaten-path entertainment for your more theatrically adventurous conferees. Check out the website and get on the mailing list for their upcoming offerings!