If you missed the sold-out run of PoeFest at the Hotel San Carlos this month, you may still have a chance to get a taste on Halloween evening, when the company will perform Poe’s classic “The Raven” from 8 to 10 p.m. at Rosson House.
“Every 20 minutes starting at 8 p.m., one of two performers will recite ‘The Raven’ on the staircase at Rosson House,” PoeFest company member Megan Holcomb says. The event will also offer a tantalizing, if limited, taste of the historic 1895 home in Downtown Phoenix. “The audiences will be brought in in small groups, just a few at a time. Whoever buys a ticket will get to go through the front door to the beautiful staircase,” Holcomb says. “They get to experience PoeFest, and they get a sort of mini-tour of part of the first floor of the Rosson House.”
The setting should add atmosphere to the aching emotional power and seamless, exquisitely alliterative verse of “The Raven,” Poe’s 1845 masterpiece in which a grieving narrator’s late night ruminations on his departed lover Lenore are interrupted by the intrusion of the eponymous bird. To each of the narrator’s rhetorical requests for comfort, the bird gives a single, conveniently rhyming reply: “Nevermore.”
Poe claimed he initially considered a parrot for the title role; the recasting was probably wise. “The Raven” is an unforgettable work, and it’s just one example of Poe’s continuing relevance. “For someone who only lived 40 years, that his work is still celebrated is something special,” Holcomb says.
Hearing the material treated as performance text adds yet another dimension, Holcomb says, who will be present for the evening assisting with the séance. “There’s a difference between reading and performing something that’s memorized,” she says. “What’s special about PoeFest is it’s not just reading, it’s creating an immersive experience.”
Tickets are $20; for details go to poefest.org.
