NEVERMORE REVIEW
The Calgary Herald

Not a pretty picture.

But in the hands of the Nevermore creators, Catalyst writer/director Jonathan Christenson (who also wrote the music) and resident production designer Bretta Gerecke, it becomes an indelible study in loneliness, seeking refuge and recourse in the morbidity of an overheated imagination.

A portrait, moreover, painted in glowing shades of dark and by no means not without humour (of the more burlesque yet offbeat kind).

The show's itinerary of woe for Poe winds through some gothic psychological territory plagued by, among other things, consumption (a 19th-century scourge that takes Edgar's beloved mother and ultimately himself, along with assorted beloved women in between); and foster family dysfunction (Edgar Poe at the mercy of the hard-hearted, one-eyed head of the Allan household).

Then there are such matters as schoolyard bullies - perpetrating the act of cruelty that by and by leads to inspiration for the story, The Black Cat - and, eventually, the love affair with bourbon and gin that ends Poe's best chance for lasting happiness.

Everything about Nevermore, a proven hit with audiences from Edmonton and Toronto to London and New York, is just about perfect, in both the scale of its conception and the manner of its execution.

And that may be the show's only drawback.

After watching what was touted as the 100th performance of the cabaret-flavoured and inventively choreographed musical, you are left with the impression that the show's emphasis on brilliantly stylized and polished storytelling comes at the expense of any real emotional commitment on the part of the audience with either the characters or the story being told.

We can marvel at the theatrical genius of designer Gerecke's delightfully absurd costumes, for example - a crinolined phantasmagoria that reminds you of Edward Gorey-meets-Edward Lear-meets-Dr. Seuss, or a Tim Burton gone wild. And we can rejoice in the assured and very listenable voicings of Christenson's text on the part of the seven-member Nevermore cast.

But then there are stretches where the performers act out what the narrator is saying (six actors rotate in the role of narrative Chorus) and you feel like you're watching an illustrated book being read. (Remember how your teachers in elementary school used to hold up a book and show the class the pictures after reading a page?)

The performers are uniformly outstanding in their multiple roles. Of particular note are Ryan Parker, whose strong presence in his turns at being the Chorus reminds you of someone like Joel Grey in Cabaret; and Scott Shpeley in the role of Poe, portrayed in the first half of Nevermore as an onlooker/victim shuttled between anguish and shock, and as more of an active participant in his own doom and gloom in the rest.

Thanks to Shpeley's subtlety in expressing Poe's attempt to reinvent himself through his writing, it suddenly becomes more interesting fun to ponder the intriguing relationship between how a man's life affects his art and how a man's art informs his life.

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