Poe Show -- Please note

Those of you who are attending the Poe Show at the CSC, just a reminder: please show up in the lobby before 7:15, especially if I have your ticket. The doors of the theater close at 7:30, which mean we should be in the theater and seated before then.

Here are some rules of etiquette and tips for watching the play -- from the CSC:

It’s a great idea to brush up on theater etiquette to help everyone enjoy the experience. The following guidelines offer tips on what is expected of audience members.

Before the performance:

Buy your tickets in advance: In order to see a live performance, you first will need to buy a ticket. Your ticket will be for a specific date and show and is not refundable. You can, however, change the date for a small surcharge. Your tickets can be picked up at will call or purchased at the box office.

Dress comfortably: We want you to enjoy the live theater you’re about to see. Please dress comfortably, whatever that may be to you. Dress up or dress down; just be ready to see some great live theater!

Arrive a little early: Because you are attending a live performance, audience members may not be admitted if they arrive late. This avoids disturbing the performance for the actors and other audience members. Plan to arrive about 15 minutes early.

Take care of personal needs: Try to use the restroom before the show begins. Otherwise, if you leave your seat before intermission, you’ll most likely disturb other audience members and the performers.

Find your assigned seat: An usher will greet you before you enter the theater and ask for your ticket with its assigned seat number. When you sit in your assigned seat, you’ll help prevent confusion for other audience members. Once you’re settled, turn off your mobile phone so it does not disturb the performance or those seated around you if it rings.

Check out the program: The usher will give you a printed program. By arriving early, you’ll have enough time to read it and have an idea of what to expect in the show. You’ll also find names and information about people who are performing and helping to produce the show. It’s an enjoyable read—and sometimes surprising!

During the performance:

Listen closely: You will hear actors perform live for you, and careful listening will help keep you from missing important elements of the performance. Try to avoid talking or fidgeting during the performance. You'll be able to hear better and also avoid disturbing those around you.

Respond readily: During the live performance, feel free to let the actors know you appreciate the show. Laugh at funny parts, cheer when it’s called for, applaud when you like something, and even shriek when you’re frightened. We always appreciate a respectful, appropriate response.

After the performance:

Applaud enthusiastically: Show your appreciation by applauding for the performers. Occasionally, you might hear people applaud or cheer during the performance; that’s fine once in a while. But most often the audience holds its applause until after the performance has ended.

Remain seated for the curtain call: At the end of the performance there is usually a curtain call. This is when the actors come on stage to accept your appreciation. Wait to leave until the curtain call is over and exit with the rest of the audience.

Stand and applaud: Actors are thrilled when they receive what’s called a “standing ovation.” If you really liked the show and want to reward the performers with the highest praise, you’re welcome to stand and applaud.

Doppelgängers in literature

Doppelganger in "William Wilson"

A Doppelganger ("double goer" in German) is a double or second-self. In literature, dream analysis, or archetypal symbolism, the Doppelganger is often figured as a twin, shadow, or mirror-image of the protagonist. The Doppelganger characteristically appears as identical to (or closely resembling) the protagonist; sometimes the protagonist and Doppelganger have the same name. Prominent literary examples of Doppelgangers include Poe's "William Wilson," Joseph Conrad's The Secret Sharer, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Double, Al-Tayyib Salih's Season of Migration to the North, and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.

In its simplest incarnation, mistaken identity is a classic trope used in literature, from Twelfth Night (as Jennifer & Larry will recall) to A Tale of Two Cities. But in these cases, the characters look similar for perfectly normal reasons, such as being siblings or simple coincidence. These are NOT doppelgangers.

Other stories offer supernatural explanations for doubles. These doppelgängers are typically, but not always, dark or evil in some way. The double will often impersonate the victim and go about ruining them, for instance through committing crimes or insulting the victim's friends (like in Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde). Sometimes, the double even tries to kill the original. The torment is occasionally earned; for instance, in Edgar Allan Poe's short story William Wilson, the protagonist of questionable morality is dogged by his doppelgänger most tenaciously when his morals fail.

When doppelgängers are used as harbingers of impending destruction, they are almost always supernaturally based. Doppelgängers are sometimes the evil copies of the player in games. They are usually meant as 'the final test', conquering yourself. Another variant, usually seen in science fiction, involves clones, which creates a genetically identical new being without the memories and experiences of the original. Some futuristic variants in fiction duplicate living beings in their entirety, albeit sometimes with modified memories and motives.

Doubles are also seen in fiction involving time travel and parallel universes, as in The Time Traveller's Wife. In this case, the doppelgänger really "is" the doubled person, but from a different timeline or different version of the universe.

Trivia: Did you know that Abraham Lincoln was convinced he had a doppelganger? Carl Sandburg's biography contains the following:

A dream or illusion had haunted Lincoln at times through the winter. On the evening of his election he had thrown himself on one of the haircloth sofas at home, just after the first telegrams of November 6 had told him he was elected President, and looking into a bureau mirror across the room he saw himself full length, but with two faceIt bothered him; he got up; the illusion vanished; but when he lay down again there in the glass again were two faces, one paler than the other. He got up again, mixed in the election excitement, forgot about it; but it came back, and haunted him. He told his wife about it; she worried too. A few days later he tried it once more and the illusion of the two faces again registered to his eyes. But that was the last; the ghost since then wouldn't come back, he told his wife, who said it was a sign he would be elected to a second term, and the death pallor of one face meant he wouldn't live through his second term.

Adaptation of "The Masque of the Red Death"

Here is an interesting interpretation/adaptation of "The Masque of the Red Death." It's a highly abridged version, but the animator renders the masquerade quite nicely -- worthy of a look:

View: Masque of the Red Death animation

Masquerade Masks & Plague Masks

Masques for the Venetian carnevale festivities

Re "The Masque of the Red Death": The following is a brief summary of the most common masquerade mask types used during the plague years of the Renaissance in Italy.

• Check out the masquerade masks video here.

Masks are an essential feature of il Carnevale di Venezia. Venice's Carnival began in the 11th century, and the wearing of masks and costumes was well established by 1436, when mask makers or mascereri were officially recognized with their own guild.

The practice of wearing masks for disguise reached its peak in the 18th century when Venetians of different social classes used Carnevale as an excuse to mingle among different classes of people without fear of recognition or retribution. The mask was always worn over a black hood with a black tricorn hat, along with a long black cape to give the maximum degree of disguise.

The volto masque

The volto mask completely hides the face. The moretta was a common type of volto -- an all black velvet mask made for women held in place by their teeth, which was supposed to add to their mysterious air. (The woman was supposed to charm the man without necessarily "talking.")

The bauta masque (spoon mask)

The traditional bauta mask allows the masquerader to eat and drink without removing it as it jets out from the face by several inches. It's also known as a "spoon mask" -- never mind a mouth on the mask. Worn all year round by the Venetian upper classes, the Bauta was the most popular of disguises during Carnevale.

The plague doctor masque

The plague doctor masque was said to protect the doctor from various diseases -- like Bubonic Plague -- since its very long nose doesn't exactly let you get too close to anyone's face.

Gallery of masques:

Snapshot: Novels with Unreliable Narrators

If any of you are particularly attracted to the literary idea of the unreliable narrator, some splendid American novels make use of one. Here are three:

One Flew Over a Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
"Chief" Bromden, a patient at a mental hospital, suffers from schizophrenia, and his telling of the events often includes things such as people growing or shrinking, walls oozing with slime, or the orderlies kidnapping and "curing" Santa Claus.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Charlie Gordon, the narrator in Daniel Keyes' epistolary novel, Flowers for Algernon is mentally retarded at the start of the novel but develops greater intelligence and understanding as the novel progresses.

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Henry James' novella The Turn of the Screw, in which a young woman experiences ghostly hauntings summoned by supernaturally-powered children, can be interpreted as a novel of unreliable narration, but whether or not the narrator is actually delusional is left ambiguous. The young woman, a governess, tells stories of children being "threatened by the ghost of Quint," with the possible goal of misleading the reader into becoming a "victim of the governess's unreliable narration."

The Unreliable Narrator

The unreliable narrator is a distinct and important aspect of some of Poe's writings -- both his short stories and his poetry. Here's a good description from poewar.com:

An unreliable narrator is a first-person narrator that for some reason has a compromised point-of-view. In all stories with a first-person narrator, the narrator serves as a filter for the events. What the narrator does not know or observe cannot be explained to the reader. Usually, however, the reader trusts that the narrator is knowledgeable and truthful enough to give them an accurate representation of the story. In the case of an unreliable narrator (sometimes called a fallible narrator), the reader has reason not to trust what the narrator is saying.

The narrator may be unreliable for many reasons. Some of the typical scenarios are:

• The narrator may be of a dramatically different age than the people in the story, such as a child attempting to explain adult actions
• The narrator may have prejudices about race, class or gender
• The narrator may have low intelligence
• The narrator may suffer from hallucinations or dementia
• The narrator may have a personality flaw such as pathological lying or narcissism
• The narrator may be trying to make a point that is contrary to the actions of the story or be attempting to libel one of the characters due to a grudge

Whatever flaw the narrator has, at some point the reader will realize that the narrator’s interpretation of the events cannot be fully trusted and will begin to form their own opinions about the events and motivations within the story. Some readers will be put off by this approach. Stories depend on the willing suspension of disbelief, and readers can be pulled out of the story when they realize the narrator cannot be trusted. This is why telling a tale from this viewpoint can be problematic. There is a fine line between distrusting the narrator and distrusting the writer.

When done badly, a story written from this point-of-view can be viewed as manipulative, misleading, confusing and pretentious. When successful, however, the results can be powerful and fascinating.

Tell-Tale Heart -- Animation

Here's an animated version of "The Tell-tale Heart" from 1953 with James Mason narrating. You'll notice it's been shortened a bit -- the more graphic parts have been expurgated; unfortunately, one of the most important phrases (used twice in the story) has also been removed: "...a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton."

View the 7-minute animation

An Exploration of Poe Stories

Here's a highly recommended research website devoted to the works of Edgar Allan Poe.

Poestories.com

This site contains short stories and poems by Edgar Allan Poe, story summaries, quotes, and linked vocabulary words and definitions for educational reading. It also includes a short biography, a timeline of Poe's life, and links to other Poe sites.

Most people recognize Poe by his famous poem, "The Raven". Others may have read one of his more popular dark and creepy tales like, "The Fall of the House of Usher" or "The Tell-tale Heart". Poe wrote quite a few gothic stories about murder, revenge, torture, the plague, being buried alive, and insanity. Many modern books and movies have "borrowed" ideas from Poe. Some of Poe's stories were not well accepted in his day because people were just not ready for them- they were too scary.

Poe Show -- Update

I purchased tickets to the Poe show for everyone who gave me ticket money. We've got seats in Rows D and E. If anyone else is interested in going, you can still buy your own tickets. As of last Friday there were still seats available contiguous to our seats. Call the box office at 381-BARD.

Again, the show begins at 7:30 p.m. next Sunday, November 1st. The house lobby opens at 6:30 and the theater opens at 7:00. If you are not going with me, please meet us in the lobby of the theater between 7:00 and 7:15. If you need directions, please consult the CSC website.