Nevermore delivers macabre window into Poe's world

Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe recreates the life of a man haunted by a lion's share of tragedy, a man living in the shadow of death.

Who was this mad and tormented genius who witnessed the death of his mother at age six, watched his foster mother descend into madness, was abandoned by his foster father, and hopelessly watched his brother and wife die a slow death from tuberculosis?

Throughout his entire life, Poe saw himself as a locked out lover always being barred the warm embrace of someone he loved. No wonder he spent his life oscillating between hope and despair.

When Catalyst Theatre's artistic director Jonathan Christenson premiered Nevermore in May 2009 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Poe's birth, he didn't set out to recreate an exact biography.

But like Poe, who often revised and reinvented details about his life to meet the occasion, Christenson attempted to recreate a musical tragedy of what might have been.

Returning from a successful remount at Vancouver's Arts Club, Nevermore opened at Catalyst on Saturday for a 10-day run that concludes Feb. 21.

Similar to a parody of The Raven, Poe's most famous allegorical work, Nevermore delivers an original score, musical poetry, stylized language and a supernatural atmosphere.

If it is possible to play out the tragedy of a man who never exorcized his demons, a man who was conflicted by the desire to both forget and remember his memories, this is it.

Together with production designer Bretta Gerecke, Christenson has fashioned a nightmarish world of impending doom, where Poe (Scott Shpeley) relives his dark memories. We, the audience, are in Poe's mind as each person he loves flies from his life and he alternately becomes weak and weary, regretful and grief-stricken before passing into a frenzy of madness.

But the brilliance of this eerie musical lies in the edgy Tim Burton-style production details — macabre, fragile and twisted costumes and props oozing a carnivalesque charm that reflects Poe's tortured psyche.

Running more than two hours with only one intermission, Nevermore tests the musical prowess of its ensemble. Ryan Parker is particularly dynamic in several major numbers that swing from morbid to downright hallucinatory.

Shpeley, as the wide-eyed, hollow-cheeked Poe, presents an authentic melancholy spirit while Beth Graham bubbles in the roles of Poe's foster mother/sister and wife. And former St. Albert Children's Theatre alumni Vanessa Sabourin (Poe's mother) and Garrett Ross (foster father) acquit themselves with respective degrees of vanity and cruelty.

Nevermore offers a startling vision of a prophetic man imprisoned in a nightmare that makes a slow descent into hell, dreaming dreams no man has dreamt before.