Poe Productions Australia and Poe
Burlesque Theatre. These two titles immediately grab the attention
of any fan of all things mysterious, macabre, and Poesque. At the risk of
unveiling your secrets, who are you?
I am the creative director of
Poe Productions Australia and the curator of Edgar Allan Poe Australia.
I first began my research
into Poe’s life in early 2010. His writings had always struck a cord with me.
His grotesque unapologetic imagery, his use of cryptography. His influence
always seemed to leak into my work. Whether it was a one women cabaret, or a
devised short piece of theatre history for a class presentation, romance and
gothic undertones were always evident.
When I began to dig into
Poe’s personal history, it became very clear that his relationships with the
women in his life influenced the much of his work. Being a theatre maker, I
came up with the concept for Edgar’s Girls in 2012 in my final year of drama
school at The Actors Centre Australia. So much of his work marries parallels;
The Macomb and the comical (Never Bet the Devil Your Head) the sickly and the
beautiful (Eleonora)
Burlesque in the 21st
century is a wonderful eclectic art form. It honours the traditions of classic
striptease while bringing Parody and Satire to the mix in Neo forms. I threw my
three loves into one big melting pot and Poe Productions Australia
emerged. Our premier production of
Edgar’s Girls celebrated the women who loved, inspired and challenged the most
prolific writer of the 19th Century
Australia
in the twenty-first century is far in time and space from the world
of Edgar Allan Poe, yet his work endures and influences a number
of contemporary writers and artists. Why do you think that is?
There
is no doubt in my mind that Poe was an intelligent individual. He studied Latin,
French and Greek mythology, was a skilled cryptographer and was more than
versed in the English language. These qualities made him a great writer and
poet, but what made him the brilliant artist he is known and respected as
today?
Two
words…Psychological Introspection.
Many
people who read his work for the first time in the 19th century
voiced the true horror and uneasiness they felt after reading a story of his
(Helen Whitman being a very notable one) Well before Freud, Poe was asking his readers to look within and
come face to face with the morbid and frightful reality of the human psyche. Many
of his stories deal with grief, loss and trauma …which then propels the
protagonist of the tale into a state of guilt and a sense of lost identity.
This is what makes Poe’s work so relatable….we identify with the subtext. Fear
of the unknown and consequences of our actions haunt us, more often that not,
subconsciously. It comes as no surprise to me that writers and artists who
explore the deeper levels of human psychology are inspired by Poe’s
unapologetic presentations of what it is to be human.
Of all the women in
Poe's opus, who fascinates you the most?
Signora
Psyche Zenobia. The most prominent female protagonist in any of his stories. In
A Predicament and How to Write a Blackwood Article, Poe’s unapologetic black
humour is executed perfectly through this bolshy women from high society. It is
very clear he is taking a stab at the Literati of the time. But what fascinates
me most about Zenobia, is that she is in stark contrast to all the other women
of Poe’s stories. She is not sickly, and there is no indication that she is a
young, kept women.
What else should we
know about your upcoming performances and projects?
Poe
Productions is currently working on a play inspired by one of Poe’s most famous
short stories….which one? You’ll just have to be patient I’m afraid.
Why EAPA?
In February 2015, I flew to
California. It was my first pilot season in America and I had a few meetings
and auditions with casting directors. I had worked very hard to save the money
to get myself over there to be seen by the top industry professionals. But in
the last week of my trip, I dropped everything, flew to JFK Air Port, and made
my way to Baltimore in a matter of days. The man who had been my muse for so
many years was buried only a train ride away. I reached the Westminster Church
to find the Cemetery that surrounds it locked. Heavy snow that time of year had
made parks and burial grounds to dangerous to be walking around in. The 8 foot
high iron gate was not going to stop me from standing in front of his grave and
paying my respects…I hadn’t come half way across the country to stare at his
monument from behind an iron gate. So I
hoisted myself up and over the gate, slipping over on a patch of black ice as I
landed on the other side, picked myself up and ran as fast as I could to the
foot of Edgar Allan Poe’s grave. I made a promise to him then and there that I
would dedicate a significant portion of my life to keeping his memory alive. To
find a way of sharing his life story, his stories, his poems, with people on
the other side of the world. I want people to admire Poe for his work, and how
hard it was for him to accomplish the things he did. The first American writer
who attempted to make a living solely from writing short stories, editorials
and poetry. For me, it’s such an injustice to him when you mention his name,
and people say “oh yeah, the Raven guy?” He wrote reviews, essays, created the
detective fiction genre, and achieved all this with next to no financial aid.
People are always amazed when I tell them how tough he had it…but that he never
gave in to go work in finance, or a factory where he could have made a decent
wage for himself. For me, he is the poster boy for the tortured, struggling
artist. He set the bar.
I take my research into his
work very seriously and am always keen connect with other Poe activists and
fans. My pages are listed below. Please
feel free to drop me a line and share any Poe inspired work.
https://www.facebook.com/Poe-Productions-Australia-230496387091206/timeline/
https://edgarallanpoeaustralia1809.wordpress.com/
https://edgarallanpoeaustralia1809.wordpress.com/
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