The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: RadioTheatre’s Edgar Allan Poe Festival
By Acton
On a perfectly dark and dreary evening, we venture down a cramped stairway into the crypt-like basement Under St. Marks Theater to attend the tales of a horror master in Radiotheatre’s 15th Annual Edgar Allan Poe Festival (director and writer Dan Bianchi). But rather than the nostalgic throwback we might expect from the allusion to old-time radio drama, it’s a delightful surprise to experience Poe’s eternally queasy stories in robustly satisfying performances from Frank Zilinyi and R. Patrick Alberty, and modern, immersive audio environments (sound designer Dan Bianchi, technical director Wes Shippee).
Introduced by unseen host David Neilsen, the festival is comprised of five of Poe’s best-known horror stories, deftly adapted by Bianchi into wonderfully well-crafted two-handers. If it’s been a while since you’ve read Poe, it may come as a surprise just how taut and macabre The Tell Tale Heart is, intensified here by the hideous, insistently throbbing heartbeat that only we and our very unreliable narrator (Zilinyi) can feel beneath our feet.
Frank Zilinyi and R. Patrick Alberty are masters of their art, a most intimate style of acting that requires every audible breath to be an expression of their characters. Both are able to modulate their performances from the most subtle exhalations to manic, drunken rage, as well as communicate movement and narrative in the way they open or close the space between themselves and their microphones. They’re a pleasure to hear and watch.
The cast is supported by nicely done light effects, subtly conveying each moment’s narrative focus, mood, and character’s state of increasing insanity as required by the story. Similarly, atmospheric sounds are expertly conducted in concert with the performers to set the scene and tone, and move the story forward. The Edgar Allan Poe Festival is a wonderfully performed, deluxe presentation of timeless cozy horror.
