Review: Center for Puppetry’s ‘Poe’ gives springtime a bit of a spooky edge 

Good scares and great storytelling know no season. The Center for Puppetry Arts’ remount of The Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, running through April 4, is a macabre delight.

Developed by puppeteer Bobby Box, who died in 2020, the one-act show stages a number of Poe’s most famous short works, including The Raven, The Tell-Tale Heart and The Black Cat, using three puppeteers — usually Luis R. Hernandez, Reay Maxwell and Frank Oakley III — in remarkable physical performances requiring them to maneuver constantly across a crowded set. 

In the performance attended for review, Oakley’s puppetry was performed by director Raymond Carr, while his lines were delivered by understudy Alexander Hudson. The change was seamless, with the pacing of the intertwined dialogue matching perfectly between Hudson offstage and the lines delivered by Hernandez and Maxwell.

Carr, a protege of Box who has since done remarkable puppetry with The Muppets, has recreated a show full of incredible macabre art and real shocks. The puppeteers are all costumed  by Jennifer Schottstaedt in ghostly makeup and period costumes, making them look like characters in a penny dreadful like Sweeney Todd.

The stories are all staged as though they are happening to Poe himself, an excellent touch that allows him to narrate each murderous piece with a voice mixed in melancholy and malice. When a killer is plagued by guilt or tormented without end by bleak visions, Poe is, fittingly, the tortured soul. There are jump scares and good, dark humor throughout the show, certain to keep attendees of all ages on their toes. And Poe’s best stories are timeless and can still startle people at any age. No matter how many times you’ve heard The Cask of Amontillado, that ending is still a nightmare and delicious. 

Though other included stories don’t have as satisfying a payoff, the show is always fun, watching the performers maneuver a staircase, miniature stages and even open graves in a set designed by Elaine Williams. And live music by Aileen Loy and lighting effects by Liz Lee complement the show’s tone of dread.

The entire show builds momentum until the final three stories are told in alternating chapters and a bloody, terrifying climax.

Poe is a remarkable feat.

Where & When

The Tales of Edgar Allan Poe is at the Center for Puppetry Arts through April 4. Tickets, $25.
1404 Spring St. NW.

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Benjamin Carr is an ArtsATL editor-at-large who has contributed to the publication since 2019 and is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association, the Dramatists Guild, the Atlanta Press Club and the Horror Writers Association. His writing has been featured in podcasts for iHeartMedia, onstage as part of the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival and online in The Guardian. His debut novel, Impacted, was published by The Story Plant.