AMBUSH
A New Orleans gay magazine for 23 years
www.ambushmag.com
VOLUME 23 April 26, 2005
trodding the boards
theatre & the arts
review by Patrick Shannon, III (CrescentCityChronicles.net)
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
"The Music of Erich Zann"
The Music of Erich Zann is a play based on
H.P. Lovecraft's short story of horror. The play was presented by Theatre
Louisiane (www.theatrelouisiane.com) at Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts
Center. A young man, The Narrator (Amy Woodruff) recalls his days as an
impoverished student. The setting is in a dismal and decaying, unspecified
European city. The Narrator (Amy Woodruff) lives in a decrepit and depressing
apartment building in a mysterious district on the Rue d'Auseil. The decrepit
building is run by the infirm Mounsieur Blandot (John Tiliakos). The young
student befriends an old mysterious German viol-player named Erich Zann (Kevin
M. Lee), who lives on the floor above him. As the young man becomes infatuated
with Erich Zann's (Kevin M. Lee) inhuman music emanating from the upper rooms,
he finds a world of horror, obsession, madness, and a terrifying presence from
an alternate realm.
Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born at 9 a. m. on August 20, 1890, at his family
home at 454 (then numbered 194) Angell Street in Providence, Rhode Island.
Starting with the death of his father when he was three years old, his family
had many misfortunes. As a child and through his schooling H.P. Lovecraft had
many varied, an at times esoteric interests. Though mostly reclusive, he did
marry Sonia Haft Greene. The marriage ended in divorce. During his life he made
his living writing fiction of horror and the fantastic for the pulp magazines
using the name H.P. Lovecraft. Unfortunately it is only after his death that his
writings have made profits and gained respect. Because of illness he entered
Jane Brown Memorial Hospital on March 10, 1937, where he died five days later.
He was buried on March 18, 1937, at the Phillips family plot at Swan Point
Cemetery. He is most famous for his stories on his invented Cthulhu mythology;
and is recognized as a master of horror. His works unfortunately have not been
filmed well so far. Such films as The Dunwich Horror (with Sandra Dee and
Dean Stockwell), and most recently Dagon fail to capture the spirit of
his works. Also, now there is more interest in his other works such as poetry.
The good Director's Note in the program said:
"Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890 - 1937), a New Englander, is probably best
known as a writer of weird fiction that centers around the supernatural. His
works have been the inspiration for many recent writers of science fiction and
horror, including Stephen King and Clive Barker.
The Music of Erich Zann, so very different from much of
Lovecraft's work was actually one of his own personal favorites. This desolate
story brings us into a world of strange, echoing emptiness and dares us to look
into the void."
The performance piece was created and directed from H.P. Lovecraft's story of
The Music of Erich Zann by Amy Woodruff. The short story was published in
1921.
Amy Woodruff was The Narrator and as such gave a convincingly chilling
performance as the young curious student whose curiosity leads to a surreal trip
into a hallucinogenic world of near madness. "I tried to give the impression of
a disembodied voice in most of my monologues," she told me after the
performance. Her direction and acting were inspired. She broke all the
theatrical rules, and made this version of H.P. Lovecraft's story resonate with
eerie elements of emotional feeling such as when she was just barely out of the
spotlight to speak her lines. She used darkness almost as another character in
the play. (This was interesting as darkness features in the stories of H.P.
Lovecraft such as The Hunter in the Dark, The Colour Out of Space,
and The Whisperer in the Darkness.) The entire show was done in dim
lighting with a few moments of spotlighting the three characters. This was a
decidedly enchanting and mysterious production that kept the audience
breathlessly waiting to see what strange other worldly action was about to
slither into the playing area. It was mindful of certain Asian shadow plays in
which darkness becomes conceptually visible, and light leaves the stage to
plunge itself into an inexplicable blackness.
Kevin M. Lee was Erich Zann, the ancient viol player whose glimpse into another
world led him to compose his unearthly music. He wore a large hideous face mask,
spoke no words, and played his viol with a ghostly touch, crouched over, and
slow moving with age. Kevin M. Lee gave a demented perception of the world that
one could see out of his garret window, a world that perhaps existed only in his
broken mind. The face mask was a creation of papier-mache with long thin chin,
deep set eyes, and a head of raffia hair that sprayed stiffly back beyond the
fore head into the darkness. He was seldom seen in any light except the glow of
a single candle and some blue stage lights.
John Tiliakos was Monsieur Blandot the landlord of the crumbling apartment house
that led to a world of horror for his tenants as he clumped around it with his
humpback and a limp. John Tiliakos was wonderful in the use of his artificial
physical deformities; his right foot bent at a right angle to his ankle and a
walking cane, each thump an echo to his painful gasps and groans as he groped
his way around the darkly lit set.
A projection screen was used on stage to show horrible images of insect closeups,
thunderstorms with lightening, views of the ancient European city seen from the
mad musician's window, and various other quick flickering images in both color
and black and white, all of which successfully reflected the cumulative chaos of
a mind sliding into madness. Chrispin Barnes and Amy Woodruff devised very
effective audio/video projection designs.
Costumes, mask, props design, and construction were by Amy Woodruff. The
costumes were nicely done in silver gray and blue. Blue was echoed in the simple
set, but these colors were dimmed to almost complete darkness by the use of the
little stage lighting and heavy dark pure black areas of the playing space. The
entire collection of props, especially the masks and costumes were effective and
brilliantly conceived by Amy Woodruff.
Blake Buchert ran the front of the house and was the audio operator. The viol
music used was by several composers such as a bit of Mozart and a lot of the
composition written for the film, The Red Violin. It was a collage of viol
sounds carefully selected to create the mood approaching horror of the story.
Brandi Scanion and Stella Peralta were the lighting operators. They kept the
right balance of creepy utter darkness and light.
Melissa Prejean Tupper was responsible for the wardrobe, and was the Props
Assistant. Wesley Tupper was the Production Assistant.
Amy Woodruff and her accomplished staff of actors and technical people
accomplished creating her vision to the extend that the deeper levels of the
weird and wonderful story of H.P. Lovecraft mythology was successfully
materialized. It was a unique and mesmerizing production; and she and her cast
and crew have succeeded where most films have failed.
It is good this show was revived from the original debut at the Eighth Annual
DramaRama (http://www.dramarama.org/). That performance featured Amy Woodruff as
The Narrator and Chris Genua as both Erich Zann and Monsieur Blandot. (I think
this production with two actors for each of these characters is an excellent
version.) Sara Schaefer was The Creative Consultant for that performance
presented at The Pickery Art Space of New Orleans Louisiana, which is no longer
in existence.