By Allyssa Hynes

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SET DESIGNS

*Set Change with Movable Wall

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POE: DREAMS OF MADNESS

By ALLYSSA HYNES

CAST OF CHARACTERS(In Order of Appearance)

# of lines

POE ....................................tortured author 63RAVEN ................................strange avian visitor 10VIRGINIA .............................Poe’s wife n/aELIZA .................................Poe’s mother n/aFANNY ................................woman who raised Poe n/aMAD NARRATOR ..................disturbed traveling guest 48OLD MAN ............................kind and generous homeowner 24POLICE ONE ........................called in to investigate 34POLICE TWO .......................another 34RED DEATH DANCERS ..........at least two masque revelers n/aWIDOW ...............................of the Red Death; wears black 16BLUE GUEST .......................reveler; wears blue 6PURPLE GUEST ...................another; wears purple 6GREEN GUEST ....................another; wears green 5ORANGE GUEST ..................another; wears orange 6WHITE GUEST .....................another; wears white 7VIOLET GUEST ....................another; wears violet 5PRINCE PROSPERO .............leader of the revel 20MASQUE NARRATOR ............guest at the revel 16JESTER ...............................Prince’s entertainer 7HOODED FIGURE .................Red Death; uninvited guest n/aMONTRESOR ......................seeks revenge 34FORTUNATO ........................wine connoisseur 29FRIEND ...............................Roderick’s childhood friend 31RODERICK ..........................suffers a mental affliction 28MADELINE ..........................his ailing twin sister 2KING ..................................cruel ruler 18SEVEN MINISTERS ..............king’s supporters 3HOP-FROG ..........................entertainer with an unusual gait 15TRIPPETTA ..........................his friend; dancing entertainer 2BLACK CAT .........................wears a black mask n/aDUPIN ................................clever detective 14

SOUND EFFECTSEerie music, creaking, heartbeat, faster and louder heartbeat, louder heartbeat, heartbeat wanes, faint heartbeat, single heartbeat, masquerade music, clock chimes, festive music, clock strikes midnight, iron grating, thunder, wood breaking, house crumbles and crashes down, dance music.

LIGHTING EFFECTSSliver of light from lantern, pendulum shadow swinging and swinging closer, flash of lighting, fire burns.

COSTUME SUGGESTIONSPOE wears a nightshirt with a black jacket over it. The GUESTS are dressed in the various colors denoted by their names. WIDOW wears a black dress with a necklace with a large ruby pendant. The HOODED FIGURE wears a death mask and a long blood red robe. When GUESTS remove their masks, some have blood-splattered faces. MADELINE wears white robes that become blood-stained. MADAME L’ESPANAYE’S clothes are covered in blood from her throat being slashed. The COURT changes into orangutan costumes. BLACK CAT wears all black and a black cat mask. She changes into a one-eye black cat mask and then all black with a single patch of white fur.

SPECIAL EFFECTSCreating the pendulum, fire, and specified shadows onstage as lighting effects is a simple suggestion done easily with the use of a projector. However, if projections aren’t possible, these effects can be done manually as well. The pendulum can be created onstage as a mechanical piece that can be hung from the flies or manually wielded by actors onstage. The chandelier can be lowered and raised using a simple pulley rig. Similarly, cutouts or other lighting tricks can be used to create the fire and shadows, etc. for the chandelier effect.

FLEXIBLE CASTING and CAST SIZERAVEN, MAD NARRATOR, POLICE, MASQUE NARRATOR, HOODED FIGURE, GUESTS, JESTER, DANCERS, MONTRESOR, FORTUNATO, FRIEND, KING, HOP-FROG, MINISTERS, and BLACK CAT can be portrayed by any gender with only minor adjustments to the script.

The only roles in every scene are POE and RAVEN. The remaining roles can be played by individual actors for a large cast of forty-two or easily grouped together and played by a cast as small as thirteen. The number of GUESTS and MINISTERS can be decreased and lines reassigned to accommodate a smaller cast. Similarly, while a total of eighteen characters gather on stage to recite “The Raven” in ACT TWO, Scene Six, some stanzas can be redistributed for fewer actors.

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MADAME L’ESPANAYE ..........ghost of murdered woman n/aCAT’S OWNER .....................loves Black Cat; troubled drunk 39WIFE ..................................his wife 20EXTRAS ..............................as guests or dancers n/a

SETTINGTime: Nearly midnight.Place: Poe’s study and various scenes from his nightmares.

SET DESCRIPTIONPoe’s study is isolated in the corner of the stage UP RIGHT. A door in an angled wall leads OFF UP RIGHT. Above the door is a bust of Pallas. Just DOWNSTAGE of the door sits a large grandfather clock. A desk is scattered with papers. A chair sits behind the desk. A coatrack with a black coat stands back behind the desk at the intersection of the angled wall. To the LEFT of the coatrack is an open window with curtains. Next to the window is a side table with candles.

LEFT of the side table, the UPSTAGE shifts from the study into a grand hall. A large Gothic chest sits against the wall at CENTER, flanked by four chairs. Behind the chest, seven colored panels represent the seven rooms of Prince Prospero’s imperial suite.

A movable bed sits UP LEFT in front of a movable wall that mirrors the other angled wall opposite. This wall has a door leading OFF UP LEFT. The reverse side of the movable wall has a mantelpiece with a decanter, two glasses, and some books on it.

In Act One, Scene Four, a movable crumbling stone wall with an opening leading to a small recess is brought on. Chains hang on the wall inside the recess. Bones and broken stones line the outside of the wall. The same wall is used in Act Two, Scene Five, but it is not dressed with bones or chains.

PRODUCTION NOTES

PROPERTIES ONSTAGEGrandfather clock, desk with papers, desk chair, goblet, side table with candles, coatrack with black jacket, three chairs, chest (with colored costume pieces, fancy black mask, eight orangutan costumes, and chains), bed with sheets and a pillow, letter in a bottle (ACT TWO), one-eyed black cat mask, axe, books, two glasses, decanter.

PROPERTIES BROUGHT ON

ACT ONEScene One: Candle (POE) Handkerchief with blood on it (VIRGINIA)Scene Two: Basket, lantern (MAD NARRATOR) Black sheet (RAVEN) Castle banners (GUESTS)Scene Three: Items to juggle (JESTER) Eight grotesque masks, dagger (PRINCE)Scene Four: Carnival hat with bells, bottle of wine (FORTUNATO) Stone wall with chains, broken stones, bones (RAVEN) Trowel (MONTRESOR)

ACT TWOScene One: Board, ropes (POE) Suitcase (FRIEND)Scene Two: Suitcase, letter (FRIEND)Scene Three: Goblets (MINISTERS) Torch (HOP-FROG)Scene Five: Penknife (OWNER) Stone wall with broken stones, feather/quill (RAVEN)

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SYNOPSIS OF SCENESACT ONE

Scene One: Poe’s study.Scene Two: Old Man’s house in “The Tell-Tale Heart.”Scene Three: Prince Prospero’s castle in “The Masque of the Red Death.”Scene Four: Montresor’s house and catacombs in “The Cask

of Amontillado.”ACT TWO

Scene One: The darkness in “The Pit and the Pendulum.”Scene Two: Roderick Usher’s house in “The Fall of the House of Usher.”Scene Three: King’s castle in “Hop-Frog.”Scene Four: The Rue Morgue in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”Scene Five: Owner’s house in “The Black Cat.”Scene Six: Poe’s study in “The Raven.”

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”Quoth the raven—

RAVEN: Nevermore.PRINCE: (ENTER UP LEFT.) “Be that word our sign of parting, bird or

fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting.“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!Leave my loneliness unbroken! Quit the bust above my door!Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”Quoth the raven—

RAVEN: Nevermore.And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door.And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,And the lamplight o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor.And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floorShall be lifted—

POE: (Drops the quill and sits back.) Nevermore! (Smiles and closes his eyes, satisfied as the LIGHTS FADE to BLACK.)

END OF PLAY

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POE: DREAMS OF MADNESS

ACT ONEScene One

AT RISE: LIGHTS UP LOW on POE’S study UP RIGHT. SOUND EFFECT: EERIE MUSIC sets the scene for the author’s insomnia. It is late, dark, and spooky. SOUND EFFECT: CREAKING. POE ENTERS UP RIGHT through the door, holding a candle. He crosses to the side table and lights the candles. LIGHTS UP SLOWLY as the candles are lit. Poe grabs his black jacket off the coatrack and puts it on over his nightclothes, then sits down at his desk, dejected.POE: I am haunted by dreams, even when I wake. And so I wander

in this dazed stupor, unsure if I am awake or asleep, unsure if I am alive. No… I must be alive, for I am alone. Always alone. (Feels a draft and closes the open window.) I thought I had found surcease of sorrow with my wife. But instead, torment. She is dying, and I will lose her. Or have I lost her already? (Sits again at his desk.) I fear I have lost my sanity. (RAVEN reopens the window from the other side of the wall. POE is unaware of her.) I am not myself. Where am I now? Richmond, where I grew up with the Allans? Boston, where I was born? Philadelphia? Baltimore, where I will…? Or am I stuck in a nightmare? (RAVEN sticks her head through the window to watch.) That seems most likely. What time does it say? (Looks at grandfather clock.) Near midnight. That seems like a fitting setting for one of my stories. Perhaps a story from which I cannot escape. Midnight. (Ponders the idea. RAVEN ENTERS through the window and perches nearby to watch him.) Once upon a midnight… (Searches for the right word.) Creepy? No. A midnight… sorrowful? No. Once upon a midnight squishy? Not at all! Dark? Bleak? Eerie? No, not quite it. A midnight… (Thinks, then sees RAVEN.) A midnight of madness! (Watches as RAVEN moves forward and slowly starts to dance. He is enraptured by RAVEN’S dance and receives inspiration. He shuffles his papers, ready to write.) Once upon a midnight… (Becomes frazzled when he can’t find something to write with.) No quills. There’s nothing to write with, even if there were something to write! (Slams the papers down on the desk, and RAVEN abruptly stops dancing. She prances closer to POE.) What vision is this? What is your purpose? What do you want? (Twirls in his seat and stares at RAVEN, unnerved.) Ebony bird, leave my loneliness unbroken. Let me be! (RAVEN does not move. POE cowers.) Abandoned by those I love to be haunted by a demon bird. These visions would not appear if I were not alone. Why do those I need depart from me? My wife, Virginia. My savior. She and my mother-in-law, Muddy, providing the family I always

Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—’Til the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden boreOf “Never—

RAVEN: “Nevermore.”KING: (ENTERS UP RIGHT.)

But the raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door.Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linkingFancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yoreMeant in croaking—

RAVEN: Nevermore.MASQUE NARRATOR: (ENTERS LEFT.)

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressingTo the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core.This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease recliningOn the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o’er,But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamplight gloating o’er,She shall press, ah, nevermore!

MAD NARRATOR: (ENTERS UP LEFT.) Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer

Swung by seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent theeRespite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore.Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”Quoth the raven—

RAVEN: Nevermore.MADELINE: (ENTER UP RIGHT.) “Prophet!” said I, “Thing of evil! Prophet still, if bird or devil!

Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—On this home by horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—Is there—is there balm in Gilead? Tell me—tell me, I implore!”Quoth the raven—

RAVEN: Nevermore.FRIEND: (ENTERS RIGHT.) “Prophet!” said I, “Thing of evil! Prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—

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sought. Some moments of pure happiness. (VIRGINIA ENTERS UP RIGHT through the door. RAVEN ushers her forward. VIRGINIA starts to sing a melancholy tune.) Until one night, mid-song… (VIRGINIA’S song is cut short by a cough. She pulls out a handkerchief and coughs up blood.) …I learned she would not be long for this world. Much as I tried to deny it, she would be like the others. (ELIZA and FANNY ENTER UP RIGHT through the door.) My own mother, Eliza Poe, an actress, gave a moving death scene before me when I was a child. And Fanny Allan, the woman who would raise me, succumbed to illness as well. (WOMEN move closer and closer to POE. He feels their presence but is fearful to face them.)

For, alas—alas!—with meThe light of life is o’er!No more, no more, no more—Such language holds the solemn seaTo the sands upon the shore,Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,Or the stricken eagle soar!And all my days are trances,And all my nightly dreamsAre where thy grey eye glances,And where thy footstep gleams—In what ethereal dances,By what eternal streams. (Finishes the recitation as RAVEN weaves in between WOMEN.) I can feel their presence. It is but fear that keeps them from me. (WOMEN EXIT RIGHT just before POE gains courage, stands and turns to face them. He sits down. RAVEN moves mockingly closer.) I am going mad, I fear. Like the characters in my stories. (MAD NARRATOR ENTERS LEFT and, beckoned by RAVEN, they move the LEFT wall DOWN CENTER and angle it so the AUDIENCE can see both sides. The bed is moved CENTER. Segue.)

End of Scene OneNOTE: Scene breaks are indicated for rehearsal purposes only, and stage action should flow continuously.

ACT ONEScene Two

POE/MAD NARRATOR: True—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am.

MAD NARRATOR: (Moves to POE.) But why will you say that I am mad?POE: Why?

TRIPPETTA: (ENTERS RIGHT.) Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice.Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore—’Tis the wind and nothing more!”

OLD MAN: (ENTERS LEFT.) Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.Not the least obeisance made he, not a minute stopped or stayed he,But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

OWNER: (ENTERS UP RIGHT.) Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore—Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”Quoth the raven—

RAVEN: Nevermore.POLICE ONE: (ENTERS RIGHT.) Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,

Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore.For we cannot help agreeing that no living human beingEver yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,With such name as—

RAVEN: Nevermore.POLICE TWO: (ENTERS UP LEFT.) But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only

That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—’Til I scarcely more than muttered, “Other friends have flown before—On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.”Then the bird said—

RAVEN: Nevermore.FORTUNATO: (ENTERS LEFT.) Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and storeCaught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster

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MAD NARRATOR: The disease had sharpened my senses—not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth.

POE: All things?MAD NARRATOR: (Gestures to POE.) I heard many things in hell.POE: That’s fitting. (RAVEN directs MAD NARRATOR’S attention back to

the AUDIENCE and the story. POE moves back to observe.)MAD NARRATOR: How, then, am I mad? Harken! And observe how

healthily—how calmly—I can tell you the whole story. (OLD MAN ENTERS RIGHT.) It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.

OLD MAN: Good morning.MAD NARRATOR: Good morning! (Enthusiastically greets OLD MAN,

who turns his attention to his room, fixing his bed.) The need to take the life of the old man. Object, there was none. Passion, there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me.

OLD MAN: You could use a warm room.MAD NARRATOR: He had never given me insult.OLD MAN: Would you like some breakfast?MAD NARRATOR: For his gold, I had no desire.OLD MAN: What’s mine is yours, friend.MAD NARRATOR: We would chat amiably.OLD MAN: What do you think the weather will be?MAD NARRATOR: (To OLD MAN.) A sane man knows you cannot

predict the weather.OLD MAN: That’s true enough.MAD NARRATOR: And sometimes he would tell me stories.OLD MAN: Once upon a midnight—MAD NARRATOR: Not that one.POE: Wait— (RAVEN shushes him.)MAD NARRATOR: He would tell me stories.OLD MAN: It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,That a maiden there lived, whom you may knowBy the name of Annabel Lee.And this maiden she lived with no other thoughtThan to love and be loved by me.I was a child and she was a child,In this kingdom by the sea,But we loved with a love that was more than love—I and my Annabel Lee—

POE looks at the feather—a quill. Suddenly inspired, he sits at his desk and writes, quickly and happily. Segue.)

End of Scene Five

ACT TWOScene Six

RAVEN: (Narrates as POE writes.) Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—Only this and nothing more.”

DUPIN: (ENTERS LEFT.) Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.Eagerly I wished the morrow. Vainly, I had sought to borrowFrom my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—Nameless here for evermore.

HOP-FROG: (ENTERS RIGHT.) And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before—So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door,Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—This it is and nothing more.”

WIDOW: (ENTERS UP RIGHT.) Presently my soul grew stronger, hesitating then no longer.

“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore,But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,That I scarce was sure I heard you.” Here I opened wide the door—Darkness there and nothing more.

RODERICK: (ENTERS UP LEFT.) Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—Merely this and nothing more.

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With a love that the wingèd seraphs of HeavenCoveted her and me.

MAD NARRATOR: I found these stories neither boring nor unpleasant.OLD MAN: And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,A wind blew out of a cloud, chillingMy beautiful Annabel Lee.So that her highborn kinsmen cameAnd bore her away from me,To shut her up in a sepulchreIn this kingdom by the sea.

MAD NARRATOR: His voice was pleasing to me.OLD MAN: The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

Went envying her and me.Yes! That was the reason, as all men know,In this kingdom by the sea,That the wind came out of the cloud by night,Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

POE: I know this poem.OLD MAN: But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we—Of many far wiser than we—And neither the angels in Heaven aboveNor the demons down under the seaCan ever dissever my soul from the soulOf the beautiful Annabel Lee.

MAD NARRATOR: And during these tellings, I would feel close to the old man. His past alive for me.

POE: But how? This is mine. It’s mine.OLD MAN: For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyesOf the beautiful Annabel Lee.And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the sideOf my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,In her sepulchre there by the sea—In her tomb by the sounding sea.

MAD NARRATOR: (Congratulates OLD MAN on the tale, but once the congratulations are over, realizes.) I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture—a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold. And so by

here! It is the beating of his hideous heart! (HEARTBEAT STOPS. POLICE TWO grabs MAD NARRATOR. DUPIN ENTERS RIGHT.)

POLICE ONE: There you are.POLICE TWO: We were just bringing these prisoners in.DUPIN: I deduced as much.POLICE ONE: He is smart.POLICE TWO: Before we go, you want to tell us who was the Rue

Morgue murderer?DUPIN: But of course. (RAVEN turns accusingly on MAD NARRATOR

and OWNER. KING and his COURT ENTER LEFT, still dressed as orangutans. They line up as suspects.)

POE: (Sizes them up.) Which one?DUPIN: It was… Edgar Allan Poe.POLICE ONE: Oh, well. That explains it.POLICE TWO: Thanks for telling us. (POLICE escort MAD NARRATOR,

OWNER, and the COURT OFF RIGHT. POE and DUPIN face off, as RAVEN observes.)

POE: You’re mad.DUPIN: No. It is not I who is mad.POE: I haven’t killed anyone.DUPIN: You’ve killed everyone. You’ve created them all, true. Myself

included. But our fates are often doomed.POE: You don’t know of what you speak.DUPIN: You create people for the sole purpose of terrorizing them.POE: No. That’s not their sole purpose. (Turns away, thinking.)DUPIN: Of that I am skeptical, and I am a great detective. (EXITS LEFT.)POE: That’s not why. It’s for art. And it could be great art! To stand the

test of time. (Turns to find DUPIN gone.) If I could only figure out the right words… then it’s not all… (Paces, annoyed by RAVEN.) Once upon a midnight… Oh, let this night end! (Crosses to front of the desk. Calls up to the location of the pendulum.) Let the end of the pendulum swing down! There is too much to fear. In these waking dreams—the loss, the death, the constant fear of madness. And in my waking life, too. I fear my feud with my partial father John Allan will never be resolved. I fear I cannot save and can never replace the love for my darling Virginia. I fear I will die alone, that my death will be unmarked, and that even my beloved mother-in-law and only family will not know of my passing ’til days after. (RAVEN moves closer.) With all these fears, there is no need to fear you. (RAVEN moves closer, removes a feather, and hands it to POE.

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degrees—very gradually—I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever. Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing.

POE: That is seemingly true.MAD NARRATOR: But you should have seen me. You should have seen

how wisely I proceeded—with what caution, with what foresight, with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. (EXITS LEFT and immediately RE-ENTERS with a basket. To OLD MAN.) I’ve brought home fresh vegetables for us. Fresh and beautiful.

OLD MAN: What’s the occasion?MAD NARRATOR: Why is an occasion necessary? It is merely a meal

of affection.OLD MAN: Then, thank you, friend.MAD NARRATOR: Is there anything I can do around the house to help

you? Anything at all?OLD MAN: There are some floorboards loose, if you would care to

fix them.MAD NARRATOR: Of course, I can. I care. Of course. (Adjusts

the floorboards.)OLD MAN: Thank you again.MAD NARRATOR: Anything new to discuss? Exciting happenings

among the neighbors?OLD MAN: The Allans are taking in a young ward. It’s unclear if they’ll

actually adopt him.MAD NARRATOR: Fascinating, fascinating. Now sleep tight tonight.

(Helps OLD MAN into bed and pulls the covers up over him.) Every night about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it—oh so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern—all closed, closed, that no light shone out—and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly—very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man’s sleep. (Sticks a lantern through the door and then sticks in his head ever so slowly. RAVEN dances through the scene to watch.) It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! Would a madman have been so wise as this? And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously—oh, so cautiously—cautiously, for the hinges creaked—I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights—every night just at midnight.

OWNER: I don’t understand it. She never said she didn’t like it. But our cat is missing too. Perhaps she left and took it with her.

POLICE ONE: Perhaps.POLICE TWO: Perhaps.POLICE ONE: It is a nice house.POLICE TWO: Sturdy and strong.OWNER: Thank you. I think so too. (Knocks on the stone wall to

emphasize the point. BLACK CAT lets out a loud meow from inside the wall.)

POLICE ONE: What was that?OWNER: Nothing.POLICE TWO: It came from inside the wall.OWNER: That’s ridiculous. (POLICE remove some stones.)POLICE ONE: There’s a body inside. I’m guessing it’s the missus.

(BLACK CAT emerges from the recess and waves. POLICE ONE grabs OWNER and starts to take him RIGHT as RAVEN moves the stone wall OFF LEFT. SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT gets FASTER and LOUDER. It becomes increasingly provoking for MAD NARRATOR.)

POLICE TWO: (Notices MAD NARRATOR.) Stop. Something is wrong with him. (SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT gets LOUDER.)

MAD NARRATOR: (Covers his ears.) I gasped for breath, and yet the officers heard it not. Oh God! What could I do? I foamed, I raved, I swore! I swung a chair and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder, louder, louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not?

POLICE ONE: (Jokes.) What’s the matter with him, eh?POLICE TWO: Think it has something to do with that dream he

mentioned? With the black bird?MAD NARRATOR: Almighty God—no, no! They heard! They suspected!

They knew! They were making a mockery of my horror! This I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony!

POLICE ONE: Are you all right?POLICE TWO: Anything you’d like to tell us?POLICE ONE: We’re here to help.POLICE TWO: We’re police.MAD NARRATOR: Anything was more tolerable than this derision!

I felt that I must scream or die! And now—again! Hark! Louder! Louder! Louder! Louder! (Cannot escape the sound. POE pushes him toward the spot where the body was buried in the floor.) Villains! Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! Tear up the planks! Here,

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POE: Midnight.MAD NARRATOR: But I found the eye always closed, and so it was

impossible to do the work. For it was not the old man who vexed me, but his evil eye. And every morning, when the day broke—(Energetically ENTERS the room to greet OLD MAN.) Good morning. Did you sleep well?

OLD MAN: Yes, thank you. Perhaps a strange dream, but…MAD NARRATOR: A dream?POE: A strange dream for me as well.OLD MAN: I slept fine.MAD NARRATOR: So you see, he would have been a very profound old

man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.

OLD MAN: Care for some breakfast?MAD NARRATOR: (Helps OLD MAN back into bed, and it is night again.

MAD NARRATOR begins sneaking through the door again.) Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. A watch’s minute hand moves more quickly than did mine. Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea, and perhaps he heard me, for he moved on the bed suddenly, as if startled. (OLD MAN moves.) Now you may think that I drew back, but no. His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness, and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily. I had my head in and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening… (His thumb slips and makes a slight nose on the lantern.) …and—

OLD MAN: (Sits up in bed, frightened. SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT.) Who’s there?

MAD NARRATOR: (Freezes. OLD MAN listens. They wait.) I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour, I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime, I did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed, listening—just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to the deathwatches in the wall. (Both wait and listen some more.) Presently, I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. (OLD MAN lets out a frightened groan.) It was not a groan of pain or of grief. Oh, no! It was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night—

WIFE: Well… this cat isn’t Pluto. This cat has white fur. Pluto had none.OWNER: Yes. That’s true.WIFE: Now can you stop worrying about the cat and bring in

some firewood?OWNER: Yes. The white spot is different. (Picks up an axe and looks

at BLACK CAT’S spot.) The white spot! Look!WIFE: I see it.OWNER: It’s in the shape of a gallows.WIFE: It’s merely a spot.OWNER: It wears a gallows on its fur. Tell me you see it.WIFE: I don’t.OWNER: Tell me you see it! (Grabs her arm.)WIFE: Ow. I see it.OWNER: I’ve got to stop this cat. I’ve got to stop this evil before it gets

me. (SOUND EFFECT: A SINGLE HEARTBEAT.) I’ve got to stop it.WIFE: You stop this! Leave the cat alone.OWNER: (Heads after BLACK CAT with the axe.) Here, kitty.WIFE: Stop this!OWNER: (Swings for BLACK CAT, but WIFE grabs him. He turns on WIFE

and kills her with the axe as BLACK CAT hides behind the stone wall. Pause. Realizes what he did and drops the axe. Looks for BLACK CAT.) What did you make me do? Cat! Fiend! It’s gone. (Paces.) What do I do? (Gets an idea. He crosses to the stone wall and removes some stones, revealing the recess.)

POE: Wait… (Watches more intently as OWNER places WIFE’S body in the recess.) …this is familiar to me. I know this crime. (OWNER quickly replaces the stones, covering the recess. SOUND EFFECT: A FAINT HEARTBEAT.)

MAD NARRATOR: (ENTERS RIGHT. Paces.) The perfect crime.OWNER: I cannot be caught. (POLICE ENTER RIGHT and cross CENTER.)POLICE ONE: (To OWNER.) So no sign of your wife, then?POLICE TWO: No sight, sound, or smell of her?OWNER: I do hope you find her.POLICE ONE: Us too.POLICE TWO: Yes. That’s our job. Finding people. With or without a

Monsieur Dupin.POLICE ONE: And so far, there’s been no evidence of foul play.POLICE TWO: Though it does seem suspicious, her disappearing right

after you get this new home.

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POE: Just at midnight.MAD NARRATOR: Just at midnight, when all the world slept, it had

welled up from my own bosom—POE: Deepening—MAD NARRATOR: With its dreadful echo—POE: The terrors that distracted me.MAD NARRATOR: I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt,

and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise, when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself—

OLD MAN: It is nothing but the wind in the chimney. It is only a mouse crossing the floor.

MAD NARRATOR: Or—OLD MAN: It is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp.MAD NARRATOR: Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with

these suppositions, but he had found all in vain. All in vain. Because death, in approaching him, had stalked with his black shadow before him and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel—although he neither saw nor heard—to feel the presence of my head within the room. (OLD MAN cowers in fear.) When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little—a very, very little—crevice in the lantern. So I opened it—you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily—until at length, a simple dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice… (LIGHTING EFFECT: A SLIVER OF LIGHT comes from the lantern. RAVEN directs the light to shine on OLD MAN.) …and fell full upon the vulture eye. It was open—wide, wide open—and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. (SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT gets FASTER and LOUDER.) And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses? Now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man’s heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. (SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT gets LOUDER and LOUDER until he can take it no longer.) The old man’s hour had come! (Pounces upon OLD MAN, grabs the pillow, and shoves it over OLD MAN’S face. OLD MAN struggles and lets out a single shriek of terror. OLD MAN stops moving, but when MAD NARRATOR starts to let up, the HEARTBEAT continues. Finally,

UP RIGHT. LIGHTING EFFECT: FIRE BURNS. RAVEN dances around, fanning the flames.)

WIFE: Help! Fire! (Helps OWNER to his feet.) Our house is on fire! We must hurry. (Helps OWNER OFF RIGHT. RAVEN EXITS DOWN RIGHT, pulls ON the crumbling stone wall, and positions it LEFT as the FIRE BURNS OUT. OWNER and WIFE ENTER DOWN RIGHT and look at the ashes.) Our home.

OWNER: Destroyed. WIFE: And that’s strange. Look at that marking in the soot.OWNER: Where?WIFE: There. It looks like… like a cat hung from a noose.OWNER: No. It doesn’t. You silly woman. (Ushers WIFE OFF RIGHT.)

When I first beheld this apparition, my wonder and terror were extreme. But at length, reflection came to my aid. The cat was hanged in the garden adjoining the house. When the fire began, someone… (Points at POE.) …must have thrown the cat inside. Perhaps to wake me. To warn me of the fire. (OWNER drinks again. BLACK CAT ENTERS LEFT, wearing the original mask and all black, except for a white fur patch. He approaches OWNER.) One night upon my way toward my new abode, I stumbled upon a black cat as large as Pluto and closely resembling him in every respect but one—a large, though indefinite, splotch of white fur. (BLACK CAT allows OWNER to pet him and purrs.) I offered to purchase it from the landlord, but the person made no claim of it—knew nothing of it—had never seen it before. (Crosses UP RIGHT with BLACK CAT as WIFE ENTERS UP RIGHT.)

WIFE: A new cat. And so similar to Pluto. This new place is truly is our home now. (OWNER sits at the desk. BLACK CAT inspects the room.)

OWNER: But soon the cat came to fill me with dread.WIFE: It’s just a cat, dear.OWNER: Oh, no. No. It is a demon. The witch you spoke of.WIFE: I was joking.OWNER: This is no joke. There is an evil inside it.WIFE: He just wants some milk.OWNER: It is Pluto come back.WIFE: Why would that be a bad thing?OWNER: Because I killed him.WIFE: What?OWNER: He didn’t die in the fire. I killed him. With my own hands.WIFE: But why?OWNER: I don’t know.

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SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT WANES, and MAD NARRATOR relaxes.) If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. (Crosses DOWN to narrate and LIGHTS follow him. OLD MAN EXITS in the dark.) First of all, I dismembered the corpse. I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye—not even his—could have detected anything wrong. There was nothing to wash out—no stain of any kind—no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. Ha! Ha! (Relaxes and sits on the bed.) When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o’clock—

POE: Still dark as midnight.MAD NARRATOR: And then at the door… (POLICE OFFICERS ENTER

LEFT and KNOCK at the door. MAD NARRATOR opens it and lets them in.)

POLICE ONE: We’re with the police department.POLICE TWO: A neighbor heard a shriek.POLICE ONE: Asked us to investigate.POLICE TWO: Make sure there’s no foul play.MAD NARRATOR: No foul play here, officers.POLICE ONE: Mind if we look around?POLICE TWO: Just to be sure. (SOUND EFFECT: FAINT HEARTBEAT

is heard.)MAD NARRATOR: Not at all. (POLICE look around the room.) The

shriek that was heard must have been me. I had a nightmare. I must have yelled in my sleep.

POLICE ONE: A nightmare?MAD NARRATOR: Yes. Of a black bird. Woke me right up.POLICE TWO: And where’s the old man?POLICE ONE: The old man who owns the house?MAD NARRATOR: He’s traveling. Not home. Here, let me show you

around. (Shows POLICE around.) I took my visitors all over the house. I bade them search—search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. I showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my confidence— (Pulls down three UPSTAGE chairs.) I brought chairs into the room, and desired them to rest from their fatigues. (To POLICE.) Why don’t you two sit a moment?

POLICE ONE: Much obliged.POLICE TWO: That’s very kind.

WIFE: They’re witches in disguise. (OWNER laughs and she joins in, then EXITS UP RIGHT.)

OWNER: (To POE.) She jokes about superstition.POE: You’re a lucky man.OWNER: I’m sure we could find you a cat. (Drinks deep.) Perhaps not

one with pure black fur, like the ebony Pluto. But there are many cats in the world.

POE: I meant instead your wife. A jovial woman.OWNER: Are you married?POE: Yes. But losing her. It’s a terrible thing. Illness.OWNER: Yes. I know plenty of that. I have an illness of my own.POE: You do?OWNER: For what disease is like alcohol? (Drinks.) It fills me with the

most perverse notions, for those I love, I tend to destroy.POE: Should you continue drinking then?OWNER: Do you mean to stop me?POE: We contribute to our own madness. I, for one, will stop myself.

(Sets his goblet down. OWNER takes it for himself.)OWNER: (Drinks.) It fills me with a fiendish malevolence. My animals

feel the effect, but not my Pluto. Never my Pluto. (Grabs onto BLACK CAT, but holds too hard, hurting him. BLACK CAT bites OWNER, who lets go but then snaps. He grabs BLACK CAT and drags it behind the desk. He pulls a penknife from his pocket.)

POE: What do you think you’re doing?OWNER: (Attacks BLACK CAT, until POE finally pulls him away. Calms

down.) Sorry for spoiling the party. (Sits on the edge of Poe’s desk. POE moves away and is joined by RAVEN. BLACK CAT emerges, wearing a mask with only one eye.) When reason returned with the morning—when I had slept off the fumes of the night’s debauch—I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I was guilty. (Stands and tries to approach BLACK CAT, who shrinks away.) The cat fled in extreme terror at my approach. (Frantically drains the remaining goblets.) I again plunged into excess and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed. Here, kitty, kitty. Pluto. (Again approaches BLACK CAT, who runs away.) My feeling soon gave way to irritation. And my action was needed. (After some pursuit, catches BLACK CAT and drags it OFF LEFT. OWNER ENTERS LEFT, slowly.) It was an unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself. I hung it because I knew it had loved me. And because I felt it had given me no reason of offence. (Falls into the desk chair and cries himself to sleep. WIFE ENTERS

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MAD NARRATOR: While I, myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim.

POLICE ONE: I suppose there’s nothing to report here.POLICE TWO: Nothing report-worthy. (SOUND EFFECT: FAINT

HEARTBEAT. POLICE don’t hear it. MAD NARRATOR is confused.)POLICE ONE: But we do appreciate the seats.POLICE TWO: We were on our feet all night. This is a welcome relief.

(SOUND EFFECT: FAINT HEARTBEAT.)MAD NARRATOR: Yes, yes. You’re welcome. (SOUND EFFECT: FAINT

HEARTBEAT. MAD NARRATOR becomes agitated.) So, did anyone, um, hear any good poems lately?

POLICE ONE: Once upon a midnight— (SOUND EFFECT: FAINT HEARTBEAT. MAD NARRATOR jumps up. SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT gets LOUDER and MORE FREQUENT. POLICE ONE is confused.)

POLICE TWO: (To POLICE ONE.) I’ve told you not to recite poetry. (SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT gets LOUDER and LOUDER. MAD NARRATOR covers his ears.)

POE: (Covers his ears.) Make it stop! Make it stop! (With his cries, the HEARTBEAT STOPS. RAVEN moves POLICE and MAD NARRATOR OFF LEFT in silence, pulling the wall back UP LEFT to its original position. She removes the sheet from the bed and covers it in a black sheet, pushing it into the UP LEFT corner. POE breathes heavily and sits down. SOUND EFFECT: SINGLE HEARTBEAT. POE is nervous.) I need some distraction from this terror. I call for revelry. Something pleasing must be found on a night such as this. (RAVEN gestures and SOUND EFFECT: MUSIC PLAYS. RED DEATH DANCERS ENTER RIGHT and begin to dance around the stage, while GUESTS ENTER LEFT. The chairs are replaced along the UPSTAGE wall and banners for the castle are hung by GUESTS. WIDOW ENTERS and along with GUESTS spread around the stage, reveling. POE is appeased. PRINCE PROSPERO ENTERS LEFT followed by the MASQUE NARRATOR. PRINCE crosses CENTER. Segue.)

End of Scene Two

ACT ONEScene Three

PRINCE: Welcome to Prince Prospero’s court. Never a finer masquerade will you find than inside these walls. A lover of parties and all things bizarre, I ensure an interesting time for all those invited. Come to my castle and partake in the fun.

DUPIN: (Turns to MADAME L’ESPANAYE as a model.) Also, consider how the throat was slashed. Very deep mutilations. Unskilled. Which points to—

POLICE ONE: We should also consider the chimney.POLICE TWO: How the other young woman was pushed up there.

(MADAME L’ESPANAYE becomes sad.)DUPIN: A feat of extreme strength.POLICE ONE: It also seems familiar somehow… a body hidden…POLICE TWO: Yes! We were working on that other case... (While the

POLICE talk, DUPIN gently leads MADAME L’ESPANAYE OFF RIGHT.)POLICE ONE: And I started to recite a poem. “Once upon a midnight”—

(SOUND EFFECT: A SINGLE HEARTBEAT.)POLICE TWO: I told you not to recite that one.POLICE ONE: (Notices DUPIN is gone.) Where did Monsieur Dupin go?POLICE TWO: (Calls OFF.) Wait! Dupin, who did it? (POLICE run OFF

RIGHT. POE starts to follow, but RAVEN prevents him.)POE: There goes the last semblance of reason. (Picks up a goblet left

behind by MINISTERS and crosses to his desk. BLACK CAT notices RAVEN and chases her around the stage.) Needed on a night such as this. (Sits and drinks. CAT’S OWNER ENTERS UP RIGHT. Segue.)

End of Scene Four

ACT TWOScene Five

OWNER: Mind if I join you?POE: By all means. (OWNER picks up a goblet, and they both drink

together, watching BLACK CAT.)OWNER: Is that your raven?POE: It is no man’s.OWNER: I claim the cat as my own. (BLACK CAT chases RAVEN UP

CENTER onto the chairs and chest.)POE: I am becoming increasingly fond of him.OWNER: I’ve always been fond of animals. All sorts. Since my

childhood. But I am especially fond of this cat. I call him Pluto. (BLACK CAT abandons RAVEN and joins the MEN.)

POE: Hello there. You seem a kinder creature than those I have encountered of late.

OWNER: He was a gift from my wife. She knows I dote upon him, though she teases me.

WIFE: (ENTERS UP RIGHT.) You know what they say about black cats? OWNER: (Turns to her.) What do they say?

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MASQUE NARRATOR: (Aside, to PRINCE.) But how long can the party last?

PRINCE: It will last as long as I say it will!MASQUE NARRATOR: Even in the face of the Red Death? (PRINCE

is offended and storms OFF.) The Red Death had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its avatar and its seal—the redness and the horror of blood. (RAVEN and a few DANCERS dance a symbolic death as MASQUE NARRATOR moves DOWN CENTER and describes the illness.) There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution.

POE: I do not like this. (RAVEN and DANCERS continue to dance.)MASQUE NARRATOR: The scarlet stains upon the body and especially

upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow men.

POE: I do not like this. The bloody death is too reminiscent of my Virginia’s illness.

MASQUE NARRATOR: And the whole seizure, progression, and termination of the disease were the incidents of half an hour.

POE: Stop this! I asked for revels. (Dance concludes. RAVEN rises from her death pose and moves POE away to comfort him.)

PRINCE: (ENTERS and crosses CENTER.) Revels we shall have. When the outside is doom and despair, inside my castle shall be merriment to the extreme. And then why think we of the outside world?

MASQUE NARRATOR: Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. (DANCERS chase the GUESTS to the CENTER of the party, and then EXIT, having not been invited within.)

PRINCE: It is folly to grieve or to think on it. Come, my guests. (GUESTS and WIDOW revel.)

MASQUE NARRATOR: It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first, of the rooms in which it was held. There were seven—an imperial suite. As might have been expected from the prince’s love of the bizarre, the apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. In each room were windows of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened.

BLUE GUEST: I match the prince’s first room in a vivid shade of blue.

SINGLE HEARTBEAT is heard through the continuing laughter. POE is unnerved. BLACK CAT goes to the desk and paws at his items. He considers stopping her, but RAVEN directs his attention to those entering. Segue.)

End of Scene Three

ACT TWOScene Four

DUPIN ENTERS LEFT, still laughing, with POLICE ONE and POLICE TWO. RAVEN EXITS RIGHT.

POLICE ONE: What’s so funny?POLICE TWO: I don’t get it. The joke or the crime.DUPIN: The joke is the crime.POLICE ONE: Didn’t seem too funny to me.POLICE TWO: It was downright grisly.POLICE ONE: Mother and daughter killed.POLICE TWO: And in funny ways.POLICE ONE: One stuffed up the chimney. (RAVEN ENTERS

RIGHT, leading MADAME L’ESPANAYE to CENTER. Her throat has been slashed.)

POLICE TWO: And the other with her throat slashed.POLICE ONE: Poor Madame L’Espanaye.POLICE TWO: Makes me not want to travel by the Rue Morgue

anymore. (MADAME L’ESPANAYE watches them.)DUPIN: I mean no disrespect to the unfortunate victims. Instead,

I laugh at the absurdity of the answer to this crime. It seems outrageous when one first considers it. But when all is held to light, it can be the only possible solution.

POLICE ONE: Which is?POLICE TWO: He means, please tell us, Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin,

great detective.POE: (To RAVEN.) This is what is needed! A great detective to find the

order in the chaos. A master of ratiocination. Perhaps the only one who can find the answer to the madness of this night…

DUPIN: Consider the facts.POLICE TWO: We’re considering.DUPIN: All the assembled neighbors who heard a commotion and

came to offer assistance heard a foreign voice, yet none could decipher what language was truly spoken.

POLICE ONE: True. Some said Italian. Some Russian.POLICE TWO: English. German.

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PURPLE GUEST: To match the decor of the purple room, this look will have to do.

GREEN GUEST: His green casements are found in his green room, and there indeed I should fit in.

ORANGE GUEST: My vest is orange to match his orange room. Its shade could be my twin.

WHITE GUEST: In matching his white decor, it looks as I should find a groom.

VIOLET GUEST: And violet is my lovely dress to match his violet room.WIDOW: And I… (Looks worriedly at her black dress and ruby pendant.)MASQUE NARRATOR: The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in

black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet—a deep blood color.

WIDOW: Becoming a widow to the Red Death, I had much black to wear.MASQUE NARRATOR: In the western or black chamber, the effect of

the firelight that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes was ghastly in the extreme and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.

WIDOW: And so I suppose, I match this scary seventh room.PRINCE: (Greets GUESTS, kissing the hands of the ladies and laughing

joyfully at their apparel.) Lords and ladies, you please me with your finery. Why, you match my castle chambers!

BLUE GUEST: We only aim to please!WHITE GUEST: We do so love your parties.WIDOW: And we appreciate your giving us sanctuary here.PRINCE: Sanctuary? From what? There is no outside world if I say

there is not.WIDOW: So the thousands who have died?PRINCE: What I do not wish to be troubled by, I will not be troubled by.

I invited only those I thought would bring me amusement. (GUESTS ad-lib thanks to him. WIDOW stands, concerned.) There exists only what my whims allow to exist in my halls.

WIDOW: I see.PRINCE: (Moves closer to her and sees the necklace.) What is this?WIDOW: A gem. It was a gift from—

HOP-FROG: Me neither, sire. (Leads the COURT OFF LEFT. GUESTS and WIDOW ENTER in costume. BLACK CAT ENTERS as well and mingles as one of the guests. SOUND EFFECT: MUSIC PLAYS. GUESTS mingle and dance. POE sees WIDOW and fights through the crowd to her.)

POE: Shall we dance? (SOUND EFFECT: CLOCK CHIMES and the MUSIC STOPS. HOP-FROG leads the COURT ON LEFT, holding a torch. GUESTS recoil in fear.)

HOP-FROG: Behold! Wild beasts escaped! (KING and his MINISTERS enjoy scaring the crowd.) Fear not! I will wrangle these animals! (A chandelier ring is lowered, and HOP-FROG attaches the COURT to it. They are still having a good time, pretending to be animals.) Leave them to me. I fancy I know them. If I can only get a good look at them, I can soon tell who they are. (KING and his MINISTERS laugh. HOP-FROG, TRIPPETTA and JESTER pull a long chain. The chandelier appears to rise. [See PRODUCTION NOTES.] GUESTS back away as LIGHTS SHIFT to JESTER. [NOTE: HOP-FROG and COURT EXIT in the DARKNESS.])

JESTER: And now, while the whole assembly—the apes included—were convulsed with laughter, the chain flew violently up for about thirty feet, dragging with it the dismayed and struggling orangutans, and leaving them suspended in midair between the skylight and the floor. Hop-Frog climbed the chain and still, as if nothing were the matter, continued to thrust his torch down toward them, as though endeavoring to discover who they were.

HOP-FROG: (From OFF.) Ah, ha! Ah, ha! I begin to see who these people are now!

JESTER: Here, pretending to scrutinize the king more closely, he held the flambeau to the flaxen coat which enveloped him and which instantly burst into a sheet of vivid flame. In less than half a minute, the whole eight orangutans were blazing fiercely amid the shrieks of the multitude who gazed at them from below, horror-stricken, and without the power to render them the slightest assistance. (LIGHTS turn RED, and the COURT screams as they catch fire. They slowly quiet and become still, dead. GUESTS murmur and cry out.)

HOP-FROG: (ENTERS, as if leaping down from above.) I now see distinctly what manner of people these maskers are. They are a great king and his seven privy councilors—a king who does not scruple to strike a defenseless girl and his seven councilors who abet him in the outrage. As for myself, I am simply Hop-Frog, the jester—and this is my last jest. (DUPIN laughs from OFF LEFT. He and TRIPPETTA run OFF RIGHT. Except BLACK CAT, GUESTS EXIT, shocked. POE tries to find and follow WIDOW but loses her as she EXITS LEFT. RAVEN returns KING’S chair. SOUND EFFECT: A

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PRINCE: It displeases me. There will be nothing red within these walls. (Rips the necklace off and throws it on the ground. SOUND EFFECT: SINGLE HEARTBEAT. POE crosses and picks up the necklace.) Anyone who disagrees can leave through the gate. But leave now, for I have a plan to keep out the pestilence permanently.

MASQUE NARRATOR: This was an extensive and magnificent castle, the creation of the prince’s own eccentric taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and hammers and welded the bolts. Then they were all encased.

PRINCE: An occasion for joy! Let us dance! (GUESTS begin to dance. RAVEN joins in, but then calls attention to the grandfather clock about to chime.)

MASQUE NARRATOR: It was in this dark apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang. And when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour… (SOUND EFFECT: CLOCK CHIMES. GUESTS stop dancing and listen nervously.) …the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound. And thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions, and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company. And, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly. The musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion. (GUESTS laugh it off amongst themselves and begin dancing again.) Then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before. (SOUND EFFECT: CLOCK CHIMES. GUESTS listen nervously again.) But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel.

PRINCE: Some more entertainment! Call for a jester! (JESTER ENTERS LEFT and juggles or entertains. He is applauded as he EXITS LEFT.) And now for a poem. (GUESTS cheer.) My guests, you must entertain me. (GUESTS gather and decide on a poem.)

HOP-FROG: I cannot tell what was the association of idea, but just after your majesty had struck the girl and thrown the wine in her face—just after your majesty had done this, there came into my mind a capital diversion—one of my own country frolics, often enacted among us, at our masquerades. But here it will be new altogether. Unfortunately, however, it requires a company of eight persons and—

KING: Here we are! Eight to a fraction—I and my seven ministers. Come! What is the diversion?

HOP-FROG: We call it the Eight Chained Orangutan, and it really is excellent sport if well enacted.

KING: We will enact it.HOP-FROG: The beauty of the game lies in the fright it occasions

among the women. (MINISTERS laugh and clap.) I will equip you as orangutans. Leave all that to me. The resemblance shall be so striking, that the company of masqueraders will take you for real beasts, and of course, they will be as much terrified as astonished.

KING: Oh, this is exquisite! Hop-Frog! I will make a man of you.HOP-FROG: The chains are for the purpose of increasing the

confusion by their jangling. You are supposed to have escaped, en masse, from your keepers. Your majesty cannot conceive the effect produced at a masquerade by eight chained orangutans, imagined to be real ones by most of the company, and rushing in with savage cries, among the crowd of delicately and gorgeously habited men and women. The contrast is inimitable!

KING: It must be! (HOP-FROG opens the chest, pulls out orangutan costumes, and hands them out. The COURT puts down their goblets and starts to change into their costumes.)

JESTER: Hop-Frog’s mode of equipping the party as orangutans was very simple but effective enough for his purposes. The animals in question had, at the epoch of my story, very rarely been seen in any part of the civilized world, and as the imitations made by the dwarf were sufficiently beast-like and more than sufficiently hideous, their truthfulness to nature was thus thought to be secured.

MINISTER: Shouldn’t we use more hair in our costumes?HOP-FROG: No. Tar and flax is the best combination. Trust me, I have

seen beasts in my life.KING: We look hideous! This is the best idea I’ve had. (ALL are

now changed.)HOP-FROG: And now for the chain. (Crosses to the chest and pull out

a large chain. He connects the COURT together.)KING: I cannot wait for tonight!

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BLUE GUEST: Hear the sledges with the bells—Silver bells!What a world of merriment their melody foretells!How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,In the icy air of night!While the stars that oversprinkleAll the heavens, seem to twinkleWith a crystalline delight,Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhyme,To the tintinnabulation that so musically wellsFrom the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells—From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

PURPLE GUEST: Hear the mellow wedding bellsGolden bells!What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!Through the balmy air of nightHow they ring out their delight!From the molten-golden notes,And all in tune,What a liquid ditty floatsTo the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloatsOn the moon!Oh, from out the sounding cells,What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!How it swells!How it dwells—

GREEN GUEST: On the Future! how it tellsOf the rapture that impelsTo the swinging and the ringingOf the bells, bells, bells,Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells—To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!Hear the loud alarum bells—Brazen bells!What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!In the startled ear of nightHow they scream out their affright! Too much horrified to speak,They can only shriek, shriek,Out of tune—

KING: Come, Hop-Frog, be merry. You do not want to displease your king. He wishes you to be merry. (A MINISTER forces a goblet into HOP-FROG’S hand. He sadly takes a sip.) More! Swallow this bumper to the health of your absent friends, and then let us have the benefit of your invention. We want characters—characters, man—something novel, out of the way. We are wearied with this everlasting sameness. Come, drink! The wine will brighten your wits. (HOP-FROG drinks more and is quite sad.) See what a glass of good wine can do! Why, your eyes are shining already!

MINISTER: What fun is it to watch a dwarf cry? We need costume ideas!KING: Have you an idea, Hop-Frog? Not yet? Drink more. And while you

think, let us have more entertainment. (Gestures for TRIPPETTA to dance again. She crosses CENTER.) No. I tire of dance. Something new. You! (Points to POE.)

POE: Me? (A MINISTER brings POE closer.)KING: Entertain me.POE: (At a loss, looks around for help. TRIPPETTA gives him an encouraging

nod.) I am a poet. I could recite a new poem. (KING claps assent. TRIPPETTA moves and POE takes CENTER. He concentrates and tries to find the proper words.) Once upon a midnight dreary. While I pondered, weak and—

KING: (Laughs.) A jest! What drivel is this!POE: It’s not meant to be a jest. It’s a poem meant to stand the test

of time. To survive when none of my loved ones do. To—KING: Bring back the dwarf! (MINISTERS shove POE aside. RAVEN helps

him away. The MINISTERS bring HOP-FROG to KING.) What did you think of?

HOP-FROG: I liked the poem.KING: Of costumes and masks! No ideas? Bring more wine!HOP-FROG: Sire, this drink affects me sorely. It is my birthday this day,

and your talk of absent friends fills me with sorrow.KING: All the more reason to drink. A toast to Hop-Frog. (Takes a goblet

from a MINISTER, forces it upon HOP-FROG, and makes him drink. MINISTERS gather around.)

TRIPPETTA: (Enters the throng and yells.) Stop it! No! Leave him alone! (MINISTERS back away and look toward KING. Now fearful, TRIPPETTA looks to KING, too. She drops to her knees before him.) Please, sire. I implore you to spare my friend. (KING regards her, then shoves her onto the ground and throws wine on her. Silence. TRIPPETTA slowly rises and retreats. MINISTERS laugh.)

HOP-FROG: Majesty, I have an idea.KING: Excellent. I knew proper motivation was all that was needed.

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ORANGE GUEST: In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,Leaping higher, higher, higher,With a desperate desire,And a resolute endeavorNow—now to sit or never,By the side of the pale-faced moon.Oh, the bells, bells, bells!What a tale their terror tellsOf despair!How they clang, and clash, and roar!What a horror they outpourOn the bosom of the palpitating air!Yet the ear, it fully knows,By the twanging,And the clanging,How the danger ebbs and flows.Yet, the ear distinctly tells,In the jangling,And the wrangling,How the danger sinks and swells,By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells—Of the bells—Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells—In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

WHITE GUEST: Hear the tolling of the bells—Iron bells!What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!In the silence of the night,How we shiver with affrightAt the melancholy meaning of their tone!For every sound that floatsFrom the rust within their throatsIs a groan.And the people—ah, the people—They that dwell up in the steeple,All alone,And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,In that muffled monotone,Feel a glory in so rollingOn the human heart a stone—

by general consent of the several ministers, on account of my inability to walk as other men do. (Moves across the stage. KING and MINISTERS laugh cruelly at him.)

JESTER: In fact, Hop-Frog could only get along by a sort of interjectional gait—something between a leap and a wriggle—a movement that afforded illimitable amusement. (HOP-FROG reaches the other side of the stage and meets TRIPPETTA as she ENTERS RIGHT. She fondly helps him sit at the front of the stage and checks that he is all right.) I am not able to say, with precision, from what country Hop-Frog originally came. It was a vast distance from the court of our king. Hop-Frog, and a young girl, had been forcibly carried off from their respective homes in adjoining provinces, and sent as presents to the king by one of his ever-victorious generals. Under these circumstances, it is not to be wondered at that a close intimacy arose between the two little captives. Indeed, they soon became sworn friends.

KING: A dance! (A MINISTER pulls TRIPPETTA to CENTER. SOUND EFFECT: DANCE MUSIC PLAYS. She dances for the COURT, who all clap and laugh. When the dance ends, she curtseys and returns to HOP-FROG.)

JESTER: On some grand state occasion—I forgot what—the king determined to have a masquerade, and whenever a masquerade or anything of that kind occurred at our court, then the talents, both of Hop-Frog and Trippetta, were sure to be called into play. Hop-Frog, in especial, was so inventive in the way of getting up pageants, suggesting novel characters, and arranging costumes for masked balls, that nothing could be done, it seems, without his assistance. (KING calls for HOP-FROG and laughs at how long it takes him to walk over.) The whole court was in a fever of expectation. As for costumes and characters, it might well be supposed that everybody had come to a decision on such points. Many had made up their minds as to what roles they should assume a week, or even a month, in advance. And, in fact, there was not a particle of indecision anywhere—except in the case of the king and his seven minsters. Why they hesitated, I never could tell, unless they did it by way of a joke.

MINISTER: Majesty, what shall we dress as this feast?KING: I know not, and it displeases me. I’m in an ill temper. We need

ideas and wine all around.JESTER: The king knew that Hop-Frog was not fond of wine, for it

excited the poor cripple almost to madness, and madness is no comfortable feeling. But the king loved his practical jokes, and took pleasure in forcing Hop-Frog to drink.

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PURPLE GUEST: They are neither man nor woman—They are neither brute nor human—They are ghouls.And their king it is who tolls,And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls,RollsA pæan from the bells!And his merry bosom swellsWith the pæan of the bells!And he dances, and he yells,Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhyme,To the pæan of the bells—Of the bells,Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhyme… (WIDOW sees POE with the necklace and crosses to him. They regard each other.)

BLUE GUEST: To the throbbing of the bells—PURPLE GUEST: Of the bells, bells, bells—GREEN GUEST: To the sobbing of the bells,ORANGE GUEST: Keeping time, time, time,WHITE GUEST: As he knells, knells, knells,VIOLET GUEST: In a happy Runic rhyme,BLUE GUEST: To the rolling of the bells—PURPLE GUEST: Of the bells, bells, bells—GREEN GUEST: To the tolling of the bells,ORANGE GUEST: Of the bells, bells, bells, bells—WHITE GUEST: Bells, bells, bells—VIOLET GUEST: To the moaning and the groaning of the—GUESTS: Bells.PRINCE: (Applauds. Then crosses to WIDOW and pulls her back into the

scene.) And what poem will you perform for us?WIDOW: Oh, I…PRINCE: You must have something.WIDOW: (Thinks.) Once upon a midnight…PRINCE: You must work on this. You’ll have to find some way to

entertain me, if you’d like to stay in my court.WIDOW: Yes, sire.PRINCE: And now I have a grand scheme. We have no wish for our

mirth to go stale. Let us have another masque—a masquerade.

you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I heard them—many, many days ago. Yet I dared not… I dared not speak! And now, tonight, Ethelred… (Laughs.) The breaking of the wood door and the clangor of the shield! Say, rather, the rending of her coffin, and the grating of the iron hinges of her prison, and her struggles within the coppered archway of the vault! Oh, whither shall I fly? Will she not be here anon? Is she not hurrying to upbraid me for my haste? Have I not heard her footstep on the stair? Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart? Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door! (Points as MADELINE ENTERS LEFT, blood upon her white robes.) Madeline! (She attacks him, and they both fall to the floor UP CENTER, dying. FRIEND runs through the door at RIGHT as POE and RAVEN swing the wall back LEFT.)

FRIEND: From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast. The storm was still abroad in all its wrath. (SOUND EFFECT: HOUSE CRUMBLES and CRASHES DOWN. POE and RAVEN slowly return the wall UP LEFT.) My brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder—there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters—and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the House of Usher. (Stillness. SOUND EFFECT: A SINGLE HEARTBEAT. FRIEND EXITS RIGHT.)

POE: (Walks slowly around the ruins.) Just like that, it is gone. I feel my mind breaks down like this house. What a somber and melancholy moment. A reminder that all— (KING ENTERS DOWN RIGHT with a train of MINISTERS and pushes POE aside. Some of the MINISTERS carry goblets. Segue.)

End of Scene Two

ACT TWOScene Three

KING: Entertainments! Amusements! (A MINISTER pulls a chair UP LEFT and he sits. MINISTERS surround him.)

JESTER: (ENTERS LEFT.) I never knew anyone so keenly alive to a joke as the king was. He seemed to live only for joking. To tell a good story of the joke kind, and to tell it well, was the surest road to his favor. Thus it happened that his seven ministers were all noted for their accomplishments as jokers. (MINISTERS and KING laugh amongst themselves.) Most of all, the king loved to laugh at the misfortune of his fool he called Hop-Frog.

HOP-FROG: (ENTERS DOWN LEFT.) The name “Hop-Frog” was not that given by my sponsors at baptism, but was conferred upon me,

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And may the costumes satisfy my particular tastes. Find what you can, guests, for a costume worthy of my notice. (Claps, and GUESTS hurry to the chest UP CENTER, where they begin to pull out costume pieces. PRINCE EXITS RIGHT.)

BLUE GUEST: All in blue and needing to cause dread, I’ll become a storm upon the sea.

PURPLE GUEST: I’ll become a ghoul. That’s sure to fright. I know it would scare me.

GREEN GUEST: In green, I’ll be a monster to meet on an eerie mire.ORANGE GUEST: With my orange color, I can easily transform into a

suit of fire.WHITE GUEST: All in white, I’ll be the most fearsome ghost you’ve met.VIOLET GUEST: And matching my color in costume, I’ll become a

shrinking violet.WIDOW: I’ve found a mask so far. I’m afraid my humor is no good

for this…PRINCE: (ENTERS RIGHT with grotesque masks and surveys the

costumes.) Good gentles, I am most pleased by these. Just a few more improvements I might make. (Hands out the masks, making them more hideous, but stops when he sees WIDOW. SOUND EFFECT: A SINGLE HEARTBEAT.) And what is this? (SOUND EFFECT: A SINGLE HEARTBEAT.)

WIDOW: A mask for a masquerade.PRINCE: This is not nearly frightening enough. Did I not say we

should strive for something fearsome to stave off our boredom? (GUESTS agree.) Here, let me help. (Hands her a gruesome mask. RAVEN brings the necklace to PRINCE.) I said no red allowed! (RAVEN flits away. PRINCE calms and admires his handiwork on all the costumes.) Let the masquerade begin! (SOUND EFFECT: FESTIVE MUSIC PLAYS. GUESTS dance. PRINCE puts on a mask and walks through the crowd as GUESTS admire and praise him. SOUND EFFECT: CLOCK CHIMES. GUESTS quiet, nervously.) This is a masque. Let us dance! (GUESTS dance. WIDOW finds POE and dances with him. As the dance continues, a HOODED FIGURE ENTERS the party subtly and very slowly makes its way to CENTER.)

POE: You are familiar to me.WIDOW: Have we met?POE: I’m Edgar.WIDOW: I am Vir—MASQUE NARRATOR: The apartments were densely crowded, and in

them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length, there commenced the sounding of midnight

nervousness which had dominion over me. I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step on an adjoining staircase arrested my attention. (RODERICK crosses to him in agitation.) I presently recognized it as that of Usher, an evidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanor.

RODERICK: And you have not seen it? You have not then seen it? But, stay! You shall. (LIGHTING EFFECT: FLASH OF LIGHTNING followed by SOUND EFFECT: THUNDER.)

FRIEND: (To RODERICK.) A storm. That is what has put us in such a fright.

RODERICK: That is not it.FRIEND: Come. Let us calm ourselves. I will read us a book. (Sits him

in a chair and picks up a book.) “Once upon a midnight…” No. Not this one. (Looks at the other titles.) The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket? No. That is too long. “The Purloined Letter”?

RODERICK: It is about to happen. You’ll see.FRIEND: The air is chilling and dangerous to your frame. (Takes a

book.) Here is one of your favorite romances. I will read, and you shall listen, and so we will pass away this terrible night together.

RODERICK: Yes.FRIEND: “The Mad Trist” by Sir Launcelot Canning. (Reads.) “And

Ethelred, now pulling therewith sturdily, he so cracked, and ripped, and tore all asunder, that the noise of the dry and hollow-sounding wood alarmed and reverberated throughout the forest.” (SOUND EFFECT: WOOD BREAKING.)

RODERICK: Did you hear that?FRIEND: Hear what?POE: I heard it.FRIEND: (Continues reading.) “And now, the champion, having escaped

from the terrible fury of the dragon, bethinking himself of the brazen shield, and of the breaking up of the enchantment which was upon it, removed the carcass from out of the way before him, and approached valorously over the silver pavement of the castle to where the shield was upon the wall, which in sooth tarried not for his full coming, but fell down at his feet upon the silver floor with a mighty great and terrible ringing sound.” (SOUND EFFECT: IRON GRATING.)

RODERICK: (Stands.) Not hear it? Yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long, long, long—many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it—yet I dared not… Oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am! I dared not… I dared not speak! We have put her living in the tomb! Said I not that my senses were acute? I now tell

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upon the clock. (SOUND EFFECT: CLOCK STRIKES MIDNIGHT.) And then the music ceased, as I have told, and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted. And there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock, and thus it happened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who reveled. (WIDOW breaks from POE, who attempts to follow her before RAVEN leads him out of the way.) And thus, too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. (GUESTS notice the HOODED FIGURE and move away.) And the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of disapprobation and surprise—then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust.

PRINCE: Who is that?MASQUE NARRATOR: The mask which concealed the visage was

made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revelers around, but the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood—and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

PRINCE: Who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him, that we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise from the battlements! (The HOODED FIGURE faces the GUESTS, who back away further.) Seize him! (No one moves.)

ORANGE GUEST: You seize him. (The HOODED FIGURE begins to move away. PRINCE gathers up his courage, draws a dagger, and chases him. They will make their way UP LEFT, behind the bed.)

MASQUE NARRATOR: Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry—and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly— (PRINCE falls down dead. GUESTS scream.)

Through the pale door,A hideous throng rushes out forever,And laugh—but smile no more.

RODERICK: (Smiles at MADELINE. She returns the smile weakly and then faints. Catches her.) Madeline! My sweet sister.

FRIEND: Let’s bring her to her room. (They help MADELINE to the bed UP LEFT. RAVEN moves the grandfather clock hands to midnight. SOUND EFFECT: CLOCK STRIKES MIDNIGHT. FRIEND crosses back to a chair and sits to relax. RODERICK covers MADELINE with a sheet, stumbles down, and collapses before him in tears.) Roderick informed me abruptly that the Lady Madeline was no more, and stated his intention of preserving her corpse for a fortnight, previously to its final interment, in one of the numerous vaults within the main walls of the building. (RODERICK and FRIEND roll the bed slowly DOWN RIGHT, followed by the RAVEN and POE.) At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the arrangements for the temporary entombment. The immense weight of the door, of massive iron, caused an unusually sharp grating sound, as it moved upon its hinges. (SOUND EFFECT: IRON GRATING.) Having deposited our mournful burden upon trestles within this region of horror, we partially turned aside the yet unscrewed lid of the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant. (RODERICK lifts the sheet.) A striking similitude between the brother and sister now first arrested my attention.

RODERICK: She was my twin sister. My lost twin sister.FRIEND: Come, Roderick. Let’s go upstairs. (RODERICK replaces

the sheet, turns, and starts quickly wandering around the stage. POE and RAVEN roll the bed OFF RIGHT.) And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an observable change came over the features of the mental disorder of my friend. His ordinary manner had vanished. He roamed from chamber to chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless step. (RODERICK stops moving and stands completely still, staring at nothing.) At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, for I beheld him gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound. It was no wonder that his condition terrified—that it infected—me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions. (RAVEN joins RODERICK.) It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night of the seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady Madeline within the dungeon that I experienced the full power of such feelings. Sleep came not near my couch while the hours waned and waned away. I struggled to reason off the

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VIOLET GUEST: Grab him! (GUESTS cross to the HOODED FIGURE standing behind the bed and grab at him. The robe remains in their hands, but the HOODED FIGURE is gone. [NOTE: HOODED FIGURE discreetly falls behind the bed and waits to exit at scene change.])

WHITE GUEST: There is nothing there! (GUESTS are terrified.)MASQUE NARRATOR: And now was acknowledged the presence of

the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. (DANCERS ENTER and dance around the GUESTS. WIDOW moves around the stage, trying to escape. GUESTS die around her. Some masks fall off, revealing blood-splattered faces. In the end, only the WIDOW is left in a ballroom full of dead GUESTS. DANCERS EXIT. She cowers on the floor. LIGHTS DIM around her.)

WIDOW: Edgar? MASQUE NARRATOR: And darkness and decay and the Red Death

held illimitable dominion over all. (LIGHTS DIM to candlelight UP RIGHT on POE. SOUND EFFECT: A SINGLE HEARTBEAT. POE shudders. RAVEN comes closer to him.)

POE: I could use some wine. (RAVEN produces a goblet from behind the desk. Drinks as ALL except he and RAVEN EXIT, taking the vestiges of the castle with them.) A good drink. Amontillado, I think. (Drinks and composes himself. RAVEN stares at him.) Why do you stare at me so? (Throws his goblet toward CENTER.) Why do you torment me? My life is full of those who wrong me. Do you wish to join their ranks? (RAVEN retreats.) A thousand injuries have I borne tonight. There can be no one who understands. (RAVEN waves, and MONTRESOR ENTERS RIGHT. Segue.)

End of Scene Three

ACT ONEScene Four

MONTRESOR: The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged. This was a point definitely settled, but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. (FORTUNATO ENTERS LEFT, carrying a carnival hat with bells on it and a bottle of wine. He is a bit tipsy.)

POE: Yes, this Fortunato…

FRIEND: I hope to help the loneliness as best I can.RODERICK: Her decease would leave me, now hopeless and frail, the

last of the ancient race of the Ushers.POE: Alone?RODERICK: Alone.POE: Always alone.FRIEND: (Stands.) Days passed and worry increased. (Takes a book

from the mantel.) I attempted to provide some distraction for my friend’s mind from his large library. (Shifts back to RODERICK.) Look here, Roderick. Have you heard the poem “The Haunted Palace”? (Reads.) “Wanderers in that happy valleyThrough two luminous windows sawSpirits moving musicallyTo a lute’s well-tunèd law,Round about a throne, where sitting—Porphyrogene!—In state his glory well befitting,The ruler of the realm was seen.

RODERICK: (Recites from memory.) “All with pearl and ruby glowing

Was the fair palace door,Through which came flowing, flowing, flowingAnd sparkling evermore,A troop of echoes whose sweet dutyWas but to sing,In voices of surpassing beauty,The wit and wisdom of their king.But evil things, in robes of sorrow,Assailed the monarch’s high estate.Ah, let us mourn, for never morrowShall dawn upon him, desolate!And round about his home, the gloryThat blushed and bloomedIs but a dim-remembered storyOf the old time entombed.

MADELINE: (ENTERS LEFT and crosses to RODERICK. Recites from memory.) And travelers now within that valley,Through the red-litten windows, seeVast forms that move fantasticallyTo a discordant melody.While, like a rapid ghastly river,

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MONTRESOR: It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face. (Waves to FORTUNATO, who waves gladly back, but staggers and sits down, unsteady. He takes another swig from the bottle.) He did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation.

POE: This man has the stature of John Allan, the man who raised me but never brought me up to the status of son. The most wrongs of my life were done by him—the almost-father for whom I was never good enough. How he seems like him!

MONTRESOR: He had a weak point—this Fortunato—although in other regards, he was a man to be respected and even feared. He prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine.

POE: (Crosses to FORTUNATO and inspects him.) And his manner of dress. So much like Griswold, my worst critic. An enemy of my writing.

MONTRESOR: Fortunato, like his countrymen, was a quack, but in the matter of old wines, he was sincere. In this respect, I did not differ from him materially—I was skillful in the Italian vintages myself and bought largely whenever I could.

POE: There is something else about this man. Perhaps it is the eyes. He reminds me of someone else, but who I cannot say... And yet I feel he was perhaps my greatest foe. (FORTUNATO stands, puts on the hat, sees and picks up the goblet thrown down earlier by Poe.)

MONTRESOR: It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. (FORTUNATO pours himself a drink and greets MONTRESOR.) My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking today! But I have received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts.

FORTUNATO: How? Amontillado? A pipe? Impossible! And in the middle of the carnival!

MONTRESOR: I have my doubts, and I was silly enough to pay the full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter. You were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain.

FORTUNATO: Amontillado!MONTRESOR: I have my doubts.FORTUNATO: Amontillado!MONTRESOR: And I must satisfy them.FORTUNATO: Amontillado!POE: What revenge is this?

RODERICK: I am sensitive to sounds. Most inspire me with a sense of horror.

FRIEND: Sounds like a most malignant malady.RODERICK: It is the terror that is the worst.FRIEND: No one likes to be afraid.RODERICK: I shall perish. I must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus,

thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in their results.

FRIEND: Calm yourself. Surely a fear of madness proves you are now sane.

POE: Can that be true?RODERICK: I shudder at the thought of any incident, even the most

trivial, which may operate upon this intolerable agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect—in terror. In this unnerved—in this pitiable condition—I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, fear.

FRIEND: It is all right, Roderick. Should we go and get you some air?RODERICK: No. No, I dare not go outside.FRIEND: Why?RODERICK: The house… (MADELINE ENTERS LEFT and sees them.

Gestures.) My sister Madeline.FRIEND: (Stands. To MADELINE.) Oh, hello there. Might you remember

me? (MADELINE EXITS LEFT, hurriedly. To RODERICK.) I seem to have scared her off.

RODERICK: My sister is not well. More so than myself. (SOUND EFFECT: A SINGLE HEARTBEAT.)

FRIEND: What is her condition?RODERICK: The disease of the lady Madeline has long baffled the

skill of her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent although transient affections of a partially cataleptical character, are the unusual diagnosis.

FRIEND: That sounds serious.RODERICK: It is.FRIEND: Do you believe it is her condition that puts you into such a

gloomy illness yourself?RODERICK: It is a more natural and far more palpable origin. The

severe and long-continued illness—indeed to the evidently approaching dissolution—of a tenderly beloved sister, my sole companion for long years.

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MONTRESOR: As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchesi. If anyone has a critical turn, it is he. He will tell me—

FORTUNATO: Luchesi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry.MONTRESOR: And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match

for your own.FORTUNATO: Come, let us go.MONTRESOR: Whither?FORTUNATO: To your vaults.MONTRESOR: My friend, no. I will not impose upon your good nature.

I perceive you have an engagement. Luchesi—FORTUNATO: I have no engagement. Come!MONTRESOR: My friend, no. It is not the engagement, but the

severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted. The vaults are insufferably damp. They are encrusted with niter.

FORTUNATO: Let us go, nevertheless. The cold is merely nothing. Amontillado! You have been imposed upon. And as for Luchesi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado. (Grabs MONTRESOR and leads him LEFT to the door, still drinking. As they cross, RAVEN pulls ON DOWN RIGHT a crumbling stone wall with an opening leading to a small recess. Chains hang on the wall inside the recess. Bones and broken stones line the outside of the wall.)

MONTRESOR: There were no attendants at home. They had absconded to make merry in honor of the time. (Opens the door at LEFT and waves FORTUNATO through. FORTUNATO EXITS LEFT.) I had told them that I should not return until the morning and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to insure their immediate disappearance, one and all, as soon as my back was turned. (FORTUNATO ENTERS DOWN LEFT and MONTRESOR joins him.) Be careful. It is down these stairs. In my vault.

FORTUNATO: Where?MONTRESOR: It is further on. (Slowly leads FORTUNATO RIGHT.

FORTUNATO coughs. Stops.) How long have you had that cough?FORTUNATO: It is nothing.MONTRESOR: Come, we will go back. Your health is precious. You are

rich, respected, admired, beloved. You are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me, it is no matter. We will go back. You will be ill, and I cannot be responsible. Besides, there is Luchesi—

FORTUNATO: Enough, the cough’s a mere nothing. It will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough.

me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? (RAVEN moves FRIEND closer to the door. He is hesitant until RODERICK opens it.) Roderick!

RODERICK: You came.FRIEND: Of course I came, old chap. What are friends for? (RODERICK

shakes his hand happily and leads him through the door as RAVEN and POE swing just the downstage corner of the wall DOWN RIGHT, revealing the backside and leaving the grandfather clock visible. POE posts up along the wall, LEFT of the grandfather clock.) Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with difficulty that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my early boyhood. The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous luster of the eye, above all things, startled and even awed me.

RODERICK: (Brings DOWN two chairs and sets them in front of the mantel.) I cannot express the happiness I feel for your visit.

FRIEND: Then don’t feel you need to. Instead, let us have a drink and we can catch up.

RODERICK: Gladly. (Picks up a decanter and glasses from the mantel and pours them drinks before sitting down to chat.)

FRIEND: It’s been so long since I’ve seen this house.RODERICK: To which are you referring—the building or its occupants?

The villagers refer to both as the House of Usher, along with their gossip of our contained family tree. Not that I venture out to hear them much, or at all anymore.

FRIEND: Well, I say, it’s been far too long since I saw either. Now, your letter has made me worry. What can I do to help? Tell me about this illness of yours.

RODERICK: Your mere presence will help and provide solace for me. My malady… it is a constitutional and a family evil, but will undoubtedly soon pass. It displays itself in a host of unnatural sensations to me.

FRIEND: Such as?RODERICK: A morbid acuteness of the senses, I’d say. Only the most

insipid food is endurable. The odors of all flowers are oppressive. And my eyes can become tortured by even a faint light. And then there are peculiar sounds. (SOUND EFFECT: A SINGLE HEARTBEAT.) Did you hear that?

FRIEND: No.POE: Yes!FRIEND: Hear what?

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MONTRESOR: True, true. And, indeed, I had no intention of alarming you unnecessarily, but you should use all proper caution. A draught of this Médoc will defend us from the damps. (Takes the bottle from FORTUNATO and pours more into the goblet.)

FORTUNATO: I drink to the buried that repose around us.MONTRESOR: And I to your long life.FORTUNATO: These vaults are extensive.MONTRESOR: The Montresors were a great and numerous family.FORTUNATO: I forget your arms. (They continue slowly RIGHT.)MONTRESOR: A huge human foot d’or, in a field azure. The foot

crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel.FORTUNATO: And the motto?MONTRESOR: Nemo me impune lacessit.FORTUNATO: Good!MONTRESOR: It means, “No one attacks me with impunity.”

(FORTUNATO coughs.) The niter! See, it increases. It hangs like moss upon the vaults. We are below the river’s bed. The drops of moisture trickle among the bones. Come, we will go back ere it is too late. Your cough—

FORTUNATO: It is nothing, let us go on. But first, another draught of the Médoc. (Empties the bottle into the goblet, tosses the bottle in the air and catches it. He expects a response, but does not get it, so he tosses the bottle again.) You do not comprehend?

MONTRESOR: Not I.FORTUNATO: Then you are not of the brotherhood.MONTRESOR: How?FORTUNATO: You are not one of the masons.MONTRESOR: Yes, yes.FORTUNATO: You? Impossible! A mason?MONTRESOR: A mason. (Reveals a trowel.)FORTUNATO: You jest. But let us proceed to the Amontillado.MONTRESOR: Be it so. (They continue walking.)FORTUNATO: This is deep inside the earth.MONTRESOR: The deepest in the city. (They reach the hole in the wall

leading to a recess. FORTUNATO hesitates.) Proceed. Herein lies the Amontillado. As for Luchesi—

FORTUNATO: He is an ignoramus. (ENTERS the recess. MONTRESOR follows quickly behind him and chains him to the wall.)

MONTRESOR: Pass your hand over the wall. You cannot help feeling the niter. Indeed, it is very damp. Once more let me implore you

RAVEN stands nearby, and POE glares at her.) Your torture is just as great. (Stands and paces around the room, regaining composure. RAVEN watches. POE notices a letter in a bottle on the desk.) A message in a bottle? This was not here before. (RAVEN indicates for POE to read it.) Perhaps this will shed some light on all these strange happenings this night. Some answers to this riddle. Some relief to this nightmare. (Removes the letter and reads it.) No. It is a letter from a friend. A friend? I did not realize I had one remaining. “Being such a boon companion of my childhood days, I do entreat you to visit the House of Usher… to visit… in my time of need.” This cannot be for my eyes. I have no friends these days. (FRIEND ENTERS UP RIGHT through the door with a suitcase. He takes the letter from POE without noticing him and crosses DOWN RIGHT. Segue.)

End of Scene One

ACT TWOScene Two

FRIEND: A letter had lately reached me in a distant part of the country, which, in its wildly importunate nature, had admitted of no other than a personal reply. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been one of my boon companions in boyhood, but many years had elapsed since our last meeting. The message gave evidence of nervous agitation. The writer spoke of acute bodily illness—of a mental disorder which oppressed him—and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best, and indeed his only, personal friend.

POE: I knew it was not for me.FRIEND: With a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society,

some alleviation of his malady.POE: Monsters are my only confidants now. (RAVEN takes POE UP LEFT.

They slowly pull the UP LEFT wall DOWN CENTER still at an angle.)FRIEND: It was the manner in which all this, and much more, was

said—it, the apparent heart that went with his request—which allowed me no room for hesitation. And I accordingly obeyed forthwith. (Turns to the door now at CENTER.) I know not how it was, but with the first glimpse of the melancholy House of Usher, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I looked upon the scene before me—upon the mere house, upon the bleak walls, upon the vacant eye-like windows, and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees—with an utter depression of soul—the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart, an unredeemed dreariness of thought. What was it—I paused to think—what was it that so unnerved

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to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. But I must first render you all the little attentions in my power.

FORTUNATO: The Amontillado!MONTRESOR: True. The Amontillado. (Picks up a stone and begins

to patch up the wall with his trowel.) I had scarcely laid the first tier of the masonry when I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a great measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning cry from the depth of the recess. It was not the cry of a drunken man. There was then a long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, and the third, and the fourth. (Places the stones.) And then I heard the furious vibrations of the chain. (FORTUNATO thrashes.) The noise lasted for several minutes, during which, that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labors and sat down upon the bones. (Sits and relishes hearing the chains. FORTUNATO stills.)

POE: (Watches by the wall. To himself.) To destroy your enemy so entirely…

MONTRESOR: When at last the clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel. (Continues sealing the wall. POE shakes his head and EXITS RIGHT behind the wall. FORTUNATO screams, now unseen behind the stones.) For a brief moment I hesitated. I trembled. (Hesitates, then suddenly screams until he drowns FORTUNATO out. After a beat, FORTUNATO stops yelling. MONTRESOR stops, smiles, and continues building.) It was now midnight, and my task was drawing to a close. (Adds the second to last stone.)

FORTUNATO: (Suddenly laughs.) A very good joke, indeed. An excellent jest. We will have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo… (Laughs.) …over our wine.

MONTRESOR: The Amontillado!FORTUNATO: (Laughs.) Yes, the Amontillado. But is it not getting late?

Will not they be awaiting us at the palazzo, the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone.

MONTRESOR: Yes, let us be gone.FORTUNATO: For the love of God, Montresor!MONTRESOR: Yes, for the love of God! (Waits for a reply. Silence. SOUND

EFFECT: A SINGLE HEARTBEAT.) Fortunato? (Waits.) Fortunato! (No response.) No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells. (The BELLS on FORTUNATO’S hat JINGLE.) My heart grew sick. It was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so. I hastened to make an end of my labor. I forced the last stone into its position. (Holds the last stone.) I plastered it up. Against

the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. Requiescat in pace! (Turns to the opening. HAT BELLS JINGLE again. MONTRESOR looks inside and drops the stone, frightened. He runs OFF LEFT. BELLS JINGLE. RAVEN moves to the opening and removes the stones. FORTUNATO has been replaced by POE chained to the wall. RAVEN watches as POE struggles. SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT.)

POE: My own enemy myself? Or is it just you, bird? (RAVEN frees POE, who helps RAVEN push the wall OFF RIGHT before running to his office. SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT gets LOUDER.) Enough! Enough! I can take no more of this! (Grabs the papers off the desk and throws them. He knocks the candles over and BLACKOUT. SOUND EFFECT: A SINGLE HEARTBEAT. Silence.)

End of ACT ONE

ACT TWOScene One

DARKNESS. POE calls out.POE: Hello? Is someone there? I find myself unable to move. Will this

night never end? (RAVEN lights candles. LIGHTS UP DIM. RAVEN is focused on her task and ignores POE. In the light, POE realizes that he has been tied to a board, leaning against the desk. Confused.) What has happened in the dark? Why have I been trapped? (Struggles against his binds.) Is this your doing? (RAVEN ignores him. SOUND EFFECT: A SINGLE HEARTBEAT. POE is filled with dread.) Free me from this. Bird! (Struggles until tired.) Once upon a midnight… hellish… (Halfheartedly tries to escape again.) I suppose you’re enjoying this? (RAVEN seems to smile. SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT. LIGHTING EFFECT: A PENDULUM SHADOW or PROJECTION begins to slowly swing toward the trapped POE. [See PRODUCTION NOTES.] POE realizes the danger and struggles desperately.) Creature, surely you are not without all compassion. Free me from these binds. This is going to kill me. I’ll be sliced right through. (RAVEN nonchalantly preens.) Why am I here? Who did this? Is it John Allan? A trick to teach me some lesson? Or a creditor? They always were unfeeling. Inhuman. My literary enemies? Griswold? Unable to defeat me by pen, he opts for this cruel sword? (POE’S struggles are useless.) Or is this all your doing? You’re no bird, but demon! (LIGHTING EFFECT: PENDULUM SWINGS CLOSER.) Help me! Don’t let this be my end. I have more to write. (LIGHTING EFFECT: PENDULUM SWINGS CLOSER. SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT gets FASTER and LOUDER. Fearful, POE struggles desperately.) Help! (At the last second, RAVEN calmly walks over to POE and frees him. POE falls to the ground and catches his breath, as the PENDULUM DISAPPEARS.

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to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. But I must first render you all the little attentions in my power.

FORTUNATO: The Amontillado!MONTRESOR: True. The Amontillado. (Picks up a stone and begins

to patch up the wall with his trowel.) I had scarcely laid the first tier of the masonry when I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a great measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning cry from the depth of the recess. It was not the cry of a drunken man. There was then a long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, and the third, and the fourth. (Places the stones.) And then I heard the furious vibrations of the chain. (FORTUNATO thrashes.) The noise lasted for several minutes, during which, that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labors and sat down upon the bones. (Sits and relishes hearing the chains. FORTUNATO stills.)

POE: (Watches by the wall. To himself.) To destroy your enemy so entirely…

MONTRESOR: When at last the clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel. (Continues sealing the wall. POE shakes his head and EXITS RIGHT behind the wall. FORTUNATO screams, now unseen behind the stones.) For a brief moment I hesitated. I trembled. (Hesitates, then suddenly screams until he drowns FORTUNATO out. After a beat, FORTUNATO stops yelling. MONTRESOR stops, smiles, and continues building.) It was now midnight, and my task was drawing to a close. (Adds the second to last stone.)

FORTUNATO: (Suddenly laughs.) A very good joke, indeed. An excellent jest. We will have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo… (Laughs.) …over our wine.

MONTRESOR: The Amontillado!FORTUNATO: (Laughs.) Yes, the Amontillado. But is it not getting late?

Will not they be awaiting us at the palazzo, the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone.

MONTRESOR: Yes, let us be gone.FORTUNATO: For the love of God, Montresor!MONTRESOR: Yes, for the love of God! (Waits for a reply. Silence. SOUND

EFFECT: A SINGLE HEARTBEAT.) Fortunato? (Waits.) Fortunato! (No response.) No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells. (The BELLS on FORTUNATO’S hat JINGLE.) My heart grew sick. It was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so. I hastened to make an end of my labor. I forced the last stone into its position. (Holds the last stone.) I plastered it up. Against

the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. Requiescat in pace! (Turns to the opening. HAT BELLS JINGLE again. MONTRESOR looks inside and drops the stone, frightened. He runs OFF LEFT. BELLS JINGLE. RAVEN moves to the opening and removes the stones. FORTUNATO has been replaced by POE chained to the wall. RAVEN watches as POE struggles. SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT.)

POE: My own enemy myself? Or is it just you, bird? (RAVEN frees POE, who helps RAVEN push the wall OFF RIGHT before running to his office. SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT gets LOUDER.) Enough! Enough! I can take no more of this! (Grabs the papers off the desk and throws them. He knocks the candles over and BLACKOUT. SOUND EFFECT: A SINGLE HEARTBEAT. Silence.)

End of ACT ONE

ACT TWOScene One

DARKNESS. POE calls out.POE: Hello? Is someone there? I find myself unable to move. Will this

night never end? (RAVEN lights candles. LIGHTS UP DIM. RAVEN is focused on her task and ignores POE. In the light, POE realizes that he has been tied to a board, leaning against the desk. Confused.) What has happened in the dark? Why have I been trapped? (Struggles against his binds.) Is this your doing? (RAVEN ignores him. SOUND EFFECT: A SINGLE HEARTBEAT. POE is filled with dread.) Free me from this. Bird! (Struggles until tired.) Once upon a midnight… hellish… (Halfheartedly tries to escape again.) I suppose you’re enjoying this? (RAVEN seems to smile. SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT. LIGHTING EFFECT: A PENDULUM SHADOW or PROJECTION begins to slowly swing toward the trapped POE. [See PRODUCTION NOTES.] POE realizes the danger and struggles desperately.) Creature, surely you are not without all compassion. Free me from these binds. This is going to kill me. I’ll be sliced right through. (RAVEN nonchalantly preens.) Why am I here? Who did this? Is it John Allan? A trick to teach me some lesson? Or a creditor? They always were unfeeling. Inhuman. My literary enemies? Griswold? Unable to defeat me by pen, he opts for this cruel sword? (POE’S struggles are useless.) Or is this all your doing? You’re no bird, but demon! (LIGHTING EFFECT: PENDULUM SWINGS CLOSER.) Help me! Don’t let this be my end. I have more to write. (LIGHTING EFFECT: PENDULUM SWINGS CLOSER. SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT gets FASTER and LOUDER. Fearful, POE struggles desperately.) Help! (At the last second, RAVEN calmly walks over to POE and frees him. POE falls to the ground and catches his breath, as the PENDULUM DISAPPEARS.

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MONTRESOR: True, true. And, indeed, I had no intention of alarming you unnecessarily, but you should use all proper caution. A draught of this Médoc will defend us from the damps. (Takes the bottle from FORTUNATO and pours more into the goblet.)

FORTUNATO: I drink to the buried that repose around us.MONTRESOR: And I to your long life.FORTUNATO: These vaults are extensive.MONTRESOR: The Montresors were a great and numerous family.FORTUNATO: I forget your arms. (They continue slowly RIGHT.)MONTRESOR: A huge human foot d’or, in a field azure. The foot

crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel.FORTUNATO: And the motto?MONTRESOR: Nemo me impune lacessit.FORTUNATO: Good!MONTRESOR: It means, “No one attacks me with impunity.”

(FORTUNATO coughs.) The niter! See, it increases. It hangs like moss upon the vaults. We are below the river’s bed. The drops of moisture trickle among the bones. Come, we will go back ere it is too late. Your cough—

FORTUNATO: It is nothing, let us go on. But first, another draught of the Médoc. (Empties the bottle into the goblet, tosses the bottle in the air and catches it. He expects a response, but does not get it, so he tosses the bottle again.) You do not comprehend?

MONTRESOR: Not I.FORTUNATO: Then you are not of the brotherhood.MONTRESOR: How?FORTUNATO: You are not one of the masons.MONTRESOR: Yes, yes.FORTUNATO: You? Impossible! A mason?MONTRESOR: A mason. (Reveals a trowel.)FORTUNATO: You jest. But let us proceed to the Amontillado.MONTRESOR: Be it so. (They continue walking.)FORTUNATO: This is deep inside the earth.MONTRESOR: The deepest in the city. (They reach the hole in the wall

leading to a recess. FORTUNATO hesitates.) Proceed. Herein lies the Amontillado. As for Luchesi—

FORTUNATO: He is an ignoramus. (ENTERS the recess. MONTRESOR follows quickly behind him and chains him to the wall.)

MONTRESOR: Pass your hand over the wall. You cannot help feeling the niter. Indeed, it is very damp. Once more let me implore you

RAVEN stands nearby, and POE glares at her.) Your torture is just as great. (Stands and paces around the room, regaining composure. RAVEN watches. POE notices a letter in a bottle on the desk.) A message in a bottle? This was not here before. (RAVEN indicates for POE to read it.) Perhaps this will shed some light on all these strange happenings this night. Some answers to this riddle. Some relief to this nightmare. (Removes the letter and reads it.) No. It is a letter from a friend. A friend? I did not realize I had one remaining. “Being such a boon companion of my childhood days, I do entreat you to visit the House of Usher… to visit… in my time of need.” This cannot be for my eyes. I have no friends these days. (FRIEND ENTERS UP RIGHT through the door with a suitcase. He takes the letter from POE without noticing him and crosses DOWN RIGHT. Segue.)

End of Scene One

ACT TWOScene Two

FRIEND: A letter had lately reached me in a distant part of the country, which, in its wildly importunate nature, had admitted of no other than a personal reply. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been one of my boon companions in boyhood, but many years had elapsed since our last meeting. The message gave evidence of nervous agitation. The writer spoke of acute bodily illness—of a mental disorder which oppressed him—and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best, and indeed his only, personal friend.

POE: I knew it was not for me.FRIEND: With a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society,

some alleviation of his malady.POE: Monsters are my only confidants now. (RAVEN takes POE UP LEFT.

They slowly pull the UP LEFT wall DOWN CENTER still at an angle.)FRIEND: It was the manner in which all this, and much more, was

said—it, the apparent heart that went with his request—which allowed me no room for hesitation. And I accordingly obeyed forthwith. (Turns to the door now at CENTER.) I know not how it was, but with the first glimpse of the melancholy House of Usher, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I looked upon the scene before me—upon the mere house, upon the bleak walls, upon the vacant eye-like windows, and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees—with an utter depression of soul—the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart, an unredeemed dreariness of thought. What was it—I paused to think—what was it that so unnerved

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MONTRESOR: As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchesi. If anyone has a critical turn, it is he. He will tell me—

FORTUNATO: Luchesi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry.MONTRESOR: And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match

for your own.FORTUNATO: Come, let us go.MONTRESOR: Whither?FORTUNATO: To your vaults.MONTRESOR: My friend, no. I will not impose upon your good nature.

I perceive you have an engagement. Luchesi—FORTUNATO: I have no engagement. Come!MONTRESOR: My friend, no. It is not the engagement, but the

severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted. The vaults are insufferably damp. They are encrusted with niter.

FORTUNATO: Let us go, nevertheless. The cold is merely nothing. Amontillado! You have been imposed upon. And as for Luchesi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado. (Grabs MONTRESOR and leads him LEFT to the door, still drinking. As they cross, RAVEN pulls ON DOWN RIGHT a crumbling stone wall with an opening leading to a small recess. Chains hang on the wall inside the recess. Bones and broken stones line the outside of the wall.)

MONTRESOR: There were no attendants at home. They had absconded to make merry in honor of the time. (Opens the door at LEFT and waves FORTUNATO through. FORTUNATO EXITS LEFT.) I had told them that I should not return until the morning and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to insure their immediate disappearance, one and all, as soon as my back was turned. (FORTUNATO ENTERS DOWN LEFT and MONTRESOR joins him.) Be careful. It is down these stairs. In my vault.

FORTUNATO: Where?MONTRESOR: It is further on. (Slowly leads FORTUNATO RIGHT.

FORTUNATO coughs. Stops.) How long have you had that cough?FORTUNATO: It is nothing.MONTRESOR: Come, we will go back. Your health is precious. You are

rich, respected, admired, beloved. You are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me, it is no matter. We will go back. You will be ill, and I cannot be responsible. Besides, there is Luchesi—

FORTUNATO: Enough, the cough’s a mere nothing. It will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough.

me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? (RAVEN moves FRIEND closer to the door. He is hesitant until RODERICK opens it.) Roderick!

RODERICK: You came.FRIEND: Of course I came, old chap. What are friends for? (RODERICK

shakes his hand happily and leads him through the door as RAVEN and POE swing just the downstage corner of the wall DOWN RIGHT, revealing the backside and leaving the grandfather clock visible. POE posts up along the wall, LEFT of the grandfather clock.) Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with difficulty that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my early boyhood. The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous luster of the eye, above all things, startled and even awed me.

RODERICK: (Brings DOWN two chairs and sets them in front of the mantel.) I cannot express the happiness I feel for your visit.

FRIEND: Then don’t feel you need to. Instead, let us have a drink and we can catch up.

RODERICK: Gladly. (Picks up a decanter and glasses from the mantel and pours them drinks before sitting down to chat.)

FRIEND: It’s been so long since I’ve seen this house.RODERICK: To which are you referring—the building or its occupants?

The villagers refer to both as the House of Usher, along with their gossip of our contained family tree. Not that I venture out to hear them much, or at all anymore.

FRIEND: Well, I say, it’s been far too long since I saw either. Now, your letter has made me worry. What can I do to help? Tell me about this illness of yours.

RODERICK: Your mere presence will help and provide solace for me. My malady… it is a constitutional and a family evil, but will undoubtedly soon pass. It displays itself in a host of unnatural sensations to me.

FRIEND: Such as?RODERICK: A morbid acuteness of the senses, I’d say. Only the most

insipid food is endurable. The odors of all flowers are oppressive. And my eyes can become tortured by even a faint light. And then there are peculiar sounds. (SOUND EFFECT: A SINGLE HEARTBEAT.) Did you hear that?

FRIEND: No.POE: Yes!FRIEND: Hear what?

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MONTRESOR: It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face. (Waves to FORTUNATO, who waves gladly back, but staggers and sits down, unsteady. He takes another swig from the bottle.) He did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation.

POE: This man has the stature of John Allan, the man who raised me but never brought me up to the status of son. The most wrongs of my life were done by him—the almost-father for whom I was never good enough. How he seems like him!

MONTRESOR: He had a weak point—this Fortunato—although in other regards, he was a man to be respected and even feared. He prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine.

POE: (Crosses to FORTUNATO and inspects him.) And his manner of dress. So much like Griswold, my worst critic. An enemy of my writing.

MONTRESOR: Fortunato, like his countrymen, was a quack, but in the matter of old wines, he was sincere. In this respect, I did not differ from him materially—I was skillful in the Italian vintages myself and bought largely whenever I could.

POE: There is something else about this man. Perhaps it is the eyes. He reminds me of someone else, but who I cannot say... And yet I feel he was perhaps my greatest foe. (FORTUNATO stands, puts on the hat, sees and picks up the goblet thrown down earlier by Poe.)

MONTRESOR: It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. (FORTUNATO pours himself a drink and greets MONTRESOR.) My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking today! But I have received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts.

FORTUNATO: How? Amontillado? A pipe? Impossible! And in the middle of the carnival!

MONTRESOR: I have my doubts, and I was silly enough to pay the full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter. You were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain.

FORTUNATO: Amontillado!MONTRESOR: I have my doubts.FORTUNATO: Amontillado!MONTRESOR: And I must satisfy them.FORTUNATO: Amontillado!POE: What revenge is this?

RODERICK: I am sensitive to sounds. Most inspire me with a sense of horror.

FRIEND: Sounds like a most malignant malady.RODERICK: It is the terror that is the worst.FRIEND: No one likes to be afraid.RODERICK: I shall perish. I must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus,

thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in their results.

FRIEND: Calm yourself. Surely a fear of madness proves you are now sane.

POE: Can that be true?RODERICK: I shudder at the thought of any incident, even the most

trivial, which may operate upon this intolerable agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect—in terror. In this unnerved—in this pitiable condition—I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, fear.

FRIEND: It is all right, Roderick. Should we go and get you some air?RODERICK: No. No, I dare not go outside.FRIEND: Why?RODERICK: The house… (MADELINE ENTERS LEFT and sees them.

Gestures.) My sister Madeline.FRIEND: (Stands. To MADELINE.) Oh, hello there. Might you remember

me? (MADELINE EXITS LEFT, hurriedly. To RODERICK.) I seem to have scared her off.

RODERICK: My sister is not well. More so than myself. (SOUND EFFECT: A SINGLE HEARTBEAT.)

FRIEND: What is her condition?RODERICK: The disease of the lady Madeline has long baffled the

skill of her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent although transient affections of a partially cataleptical character, are the unusual diagnosis.

FRIEND: That sounds serious.RODERICK: It is.FRIEND: Do you believe it is her condition that puts you into such a

gloomy illness yourself?RODERICK: It is a more natural and far more palpable origin. The

severe and long-continued illness—indeed to the evidently approaching dissolution—of a tenderly beloved sister, my sole companion for long years.

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VIOLET GUEST: Grab him! (GUESTS cross to the HOODED FIGURE standing behind the bed and grab at him. The robe remains in their hands, but the HOODED FIGURE is gone. [NOTE: HOODED FIGURE discreetly falls behind the bed and waits to exit at scene change.])

WHITE GUEST: There is nothing there! (GUESTS are terrified.)MASQUE NARRATOR: And now was acknowledged the presence of

the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. (DANCERS ENTER and dance around the GUESTS. WIDOW moves around the stage, trying to escape. GUESTS die around her. Some masks fall off, revealing blood-splattered faces. In the end, only the WIDOW is left in a ballroom full of dead GUESTS. DANCERS EXIT. She cowers on the floor. LIGHTS DIM around her.)

WIDOW: Edgar? MASQUE NARRATOR: And darkness and decay and the Red Death

held illimitable dominion over all. (LIGHTS DIM to candlelight UP RIGHT on POE. SOUND EFFECT: A SINGLE HEARTBEAT. POE shudders. RAVEN comes closer to him.)

POE: I could use some wine. (RAVEN produces a goblet from behind the desk. Drinks as ALL except he and RAVEN EXIT, taking the vestiges of the castle with them.) A good drink. Amontillado, I think. (Drinks and composes himself. RAVEN stares at him.) Why do you stare at me so? (Throws his goblet toward CENTER.) Why do you torment me? My life is full of those who wrong me. Do you wish to join their ranks? (RAVEN retreats.) A thousand injuries have I borne tonight. There can be no one who understands. (RAVEN waves, and MONTRESOR ENTERS RIGHT. Segue.)

End of Scene Three

ACT ONEScene Four

MONTRESOR: The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged. This was a point definitely settled, but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. (FORTUNATO ENTERS LEFT, carrying a carnival hat with bells on it and a bottle of wine. He is a bit tipsy.)

POE: Yes, this Fortunato…

FRIEND: I hope to help the loneliness as best I can.RODERICK: Her decease would leave me, now hopeless and frail, the

last of the ancient race of the Ushers.POE: Alone?RODERICK: Alone.POE: Always alone.FRIEND: (Stands.) Days passed and worry increased. (Takes a book

from the mantel.) I attempted to provide some distraction for my friend’s mind from his large library. (Shifts back to RODERICK.) Look here, Roderick. Have you heard the poem “The Haunted Palace”? (Reads.) “Wanderers in that happy valleyThrough two luminous windows sawSpirits moving musicallyTo a lute’s well-tunèd law,Round about a throne, where sitting—Porphyrogene!—In state his glory well befitting,The ruler of the realm was seen.

RODERICK: (Recites from memory.) “All with pearl and ruby glowing

Was the fair palace door,Through which came flowing, flowing, flowingAnd sparkling evermore,A troop of echoes whose sweet dutyWas but to sing,In voices of surpassing beauty,The wit and wisdom of their king.But evil things, in robes of sorrow,Assailed the monarch’s high estate.Ah, let us mourn, for never morrowShall dawn upon him, desolate!And round about his home, the gloryThat blushed and bloomedIs but a dim-remembered storyOf the old time entombed.

MADELINE: (ENTERS LEFT and crosses to RODERICK. Recites from memory.) And travelers now within that valley,Through the red-litten windows, seeVast forms that move fantasticallyTo a discordant melody.While, like a rapid ghastly river,

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upon the clock. (SOUND EFFECT: CLOCK STRIKES MIDNIGHT.) And then the music ceased, as I have told, and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted. And there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock, and thus it happened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who reveled. (WIDOW breaks from POE, who attempts to follow her before RAVEN leads him out of the way.) And thus, too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. (GUESTS notice the HOODED FIGURE and move away.) And the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of disapprobation and surprise—then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust.

PRINCE: Who is that?MASQUE NARRATOR: The mask which concealed the visage was

made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revelers around, but the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood—and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

PRINCE: Who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him, that we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise from the battlements! (The HOODED FIGURE faces the GUESTS, who back away further.) Seize him! (No one moves.)

ORANGE GUEST: You seize him. (The HOODED FIGURE begins to move away. PRINCE gathers up his courage, draws a dagger, and chases him. They will make their way UP LEFT, behind the bed.)

MASQUE NARRATOR: Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry—and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly— (PRINCE falls down dead. GUESTS scream.)

Through the pale door,A hideous throng rushes out forever,And laugh—but smile no more.

RODERICK: (Smiles at MADELINE. She returns the smile weakly and then faints. Catches her.) Madeline! My sweet sister.

FRIEND: Let’s bring her to her room. (They help MADELINE to the bed UP LEFT. RAVEN moves the grandfather clock hands to midnight. SOUND EFFECT: CLOCK STRIKES MIDNIGHT. FRIEND crosses back to a chair and sits to relax. RODERICK covers MADELINE with a sheet, stumbles down, and collapses before him in tears.) Roderick informed me abruptly that the Lady Madeline was no more, and stated his intention of preserving her corpse for a fortnight, previously to its final interment, in one of the numerous vaults within the main walls of the building. (RODERICK and FRIEND roll the bed slowly DOWN RIGHT, followed by the RAVEN and POE.) At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the arrangements for the temporary entombment. The immense weight of the door, of massive iron, caused an unusually sharp grating sound, as it moved upon its hinges. (SOUND EFFECT: IRON GRATING.) Having deposited our mournful burden upon trestles within this region of horror, we partially turned aside the yet unscrewed lid of the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant. (RODERICK lifts the sheet.) A striking similitude between the brother and sister now first arrested my attention.

RODERICK: She was my twin sister. My lost twin sister.FRIEND: Come, Roderick. Let’s go upstairs. (RODERICK replaces

the sheet, turns, and starts quickly wandering around the stage. POE and RAVEN roll the bed OFF RIGHT.) And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an observable change came over the features of the mental disorder of my friend. His ordinary manner had vanished. He roamed from chamber to chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless step. (RODERICK stops moving and stands completely still, staring at nothing.) At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, for I beheld him gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound. It was no wonder that his condition terrified—that it infected—me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions. (RAVEN joins RODERICK.) It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night of the seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady Madeline within the dungeon that I experienced the full power of such feelings. Sleep came not near my couch while the hours waned and waned away. I struggled to reason off the

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And may the costumes satisfy my particular tastes. Find what you can, guests, for a costume worthy of my notice. (Claps, and GUESTS hurry to the chest UP CENTER, where they begin to pull out costume pieces. PRINCE EXITS RIGHT.)

BLUE GUEST: All in blue and needing to cause dread, I’ll become a storm upon the sea.

PURPLE GUEST: I’ll become a ghoul. That’s sure to fright. I know it would scare me.

GREEN GUEST: In green, I’ll be a monster to meet on an eerie mire.ORANGE GUEST: With my orange color, I can easily transform into a

suit of fire.WHITE GUEST: All in white, I’ll be the most fearsome ghost you’ve met.VIOLET GUEST: And matching my color in costume, I’ll become a

shrinking violet.WIDOW: I’ve found a mask so far. I’m afraid my humor is no good

for this…PRINCE: (ENTERS RIGHT with grotesque masks and surveys the

costumes.) Good gentles, I am most pleased by these. Just a few more improvements I might make. (Hands out the masks, making them more hideous, but stops when he sees WIDOW. SOUND EFFECT: A SINGLE HEARTBEAT.) And what is this? (SOUND EFFECT: A SINGLE HEARTBEAT.)

WIDOW: A mask for a masquerade.PRINCE: This is not nearly frightening enough. Did I not say we

should strive for something fearsome to stave off our boredom? (GUESTS agree.) Here, let me help. (Hands her a gruesome mask. RAVEN brings the necklace to PRINCE.) I said no red allowed! (RAVEN flits away. PRINCE calms and admires his handiwork on all the costumes.) Let the masquerade begin! (SOUND EFFECT: FESTIVE MUSIC PLAYS. GUESTS dance. PRINCE puts on a mask and walks through the crowd as GUESTS admire and praise him. SOUND EFFECT: CLOCK CHIMES. GUESTS quiet, nervously.) This is a masque. Let us dance! (GUESTS dance. WIDOW finds POE and dances with him. As the dance continues, a HOODED FIGURE ENTERS the party subtly and very slowly makes its way to CENTER.)

POE: You are familiar to me.WIDOW: Have we met?POE: I’m Edgar.WIDOW: I am Vir—MASQUE NARRATOR: The apartments were densely crowded, and in

them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length, there commenced the sounding of midnight

nervousness which had dominion over me. I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step on an adjoining staircase arrested my attention. (RODERICK crosses to him in agitation.) I presently recognized it as that of Usher, an evidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanor.

RODERICK: And you have not seen it? You have not then seen it? But, stay! You shall. (LIGHTING EFFECT: FLASH OF LIGHTNING followed by SOUND EFFECT: THUNDER.)

FRIEND: (To RODERICK.) A storm. That is what has put us in such a fright.

RODERICK: That is not it.FRIEND: Come. Let us calm ourselves. I will read us a book. (Sits him

in a chair and picks up a book.) “Once upon a midnight…” No. Not this one. (Looks at the other titles.) The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket? No. That is too long. “The Purloined Letter”?

RODERICK: It is about to happen. You’ll see.FRIEND: The air is chilling and dangerous to your frame. (Takes a

book.) Here is one of your favorite romances. I will read, and you shall listen, and so we will pass away this terrible night together.

RODERICK: Yes.FRIEND: “The Mad Trist” by Sir Launcelot Canning. (Reads.) “And

Ethelred, now pulling therewith sturdily, he so cracked, and ripped, and tore all asunder, that the noise of the dry and hollow-sounding wood alarmed and reverberated throughout the forest.” (SOUND EFFECT: WOOD BREAKING.)

RODERICK: Did you hear that?FRIEND: Hear what?POE: I heard it.FRIEND: (Continues reading.) “And now, the champion, having escaped

from the terrible fury of the dragon, bethinking himself of the brazen shield, and of the breaking up of the enchantment which was upon it, removed the carcass from out of the way before him, and approached valorously over the silver pavement of the castle to where the shield was upon the wall, which in sooth tarried not for his full coming, but fell down at his feet upon the silver floor with a mighty great and terrible ringing sound.” (SOUND EFFECT: IRON GRATING.)

RODERICK: (Stands.) Not hear it? Yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long, long, long—many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it—yet I dared not… Oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am! I dared not… I dared not speak! We have put her living in the tomb! Said I not that my senses were acute? I now tell

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PURPLE GUEST: They are neither man nor woman—They are neither brute nor human—They are ghouls.And their king it is who tolls,And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls,RollsA pæan from the bells!And his merry bosom swellsWith the pæan of the bells!And he dances, and he yells,Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhyme,To the pæan of the bells—Of the bells,Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhyme… (WIDOW sees POE with the necklace and crosses to him. They regard each other.)

BLUE GUEST: To the throbbing of the bells—PURPLE GUEST: Of the bells, bells, bells—GREEN GUEST: To the sobbing of the bells,ORANGE GUEST: Keeping time, time, time,WHITE GUEST: As he knells, knells, knells,VIOLET GUEST: In a happy Runic rhyme,BLUE GUEST: To the rolling of the bells—PURPLE GUEST: Of the bells, bells, bells—GREEN GUEST: To the tolling of the bells,ORANGE GUEST: Of the bells, bells, bells, bells—WHITE GUEST: Bells, bells, bells—VIOLET GUEST: To the moaning and the groaning of the—GUESTS: Bells.PRINCE: (Applauds. Then crosses to WIDOW and pulls her back into the

scene.) And what poem will you perform for us?WIDOW: Oh, I…PRINCE: You must have something.WIDOW: (Thinks.) Once upon a midnight…PRINCE: You must work on this. You’ll have to find some way to

entertain me, if you’d like to stay in my court.WIDOW: Yes, sire.PRINCE: And now I have a grand scheme. We have no wish for our

mirth to go stale. Let us have another masque—a masquerade.

you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I heard them—many, many days ago. Yet I dared not… I dared not speak! And now, tonight, Ethelred… (Laughs.) The breaking of the wood door and the clangor of the shield! Say, rather, the rending of her coffin, and the grating of the iron hinges of her prison, and her struggles within the coppered archway of the vault! Oh, whither shall I fly? Will she not be here anon? Is she not hurrying to upbraid me for my haste? Have I not heard her footstep on the stair? Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart? Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door! (Points as MADELINE ENTERS LEFT, blood upon her white robes.) Madeline! (She attacks him, and they both fall to the floor UP CENTER, dying. FRIEND runs through the door at RIGHT as POE and RAVEN swing the wall back LEFT.)

FRIEND: From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast. The storm was still abroad in all its wrath. (SOUND EFFECT: HOUSE CRUMBLES and CRASHES DOWN. POE and RAVEN slowly return the wall UP LEFT.) My brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder—there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters—and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the House of Usher. (Stillness. SOUND EFFECT: A SINGLE HEARTBEAT. FRIEND EXITS RIGHT.)

POE: (Walks slowly around the ruins.) Just like that, it is gone. I feel my mind breaks down like this house. What a somber and melancholy moment. A reminder that all— (KING ENTERS DOWN RIGHT with a train of MINISTERS and pushes POE aside. Some of the MINISTERS carry goblets. Segue.)

End of Scene Two

ACT TWOScene Three

KING: Entertainments! Amusements! (A MINISTER pulls a chair UP LEFT and he sits. MINISTERS surround him.)

JESTER: (ENTERS LEFT.) I never knew anyone so keenly alive to a joke as the king was. He seemed to live only for joking. To tell a good story of the joke kind, and to tell it well, was the surest road to his favor. Thus it happened that his seven ministers were all noted for their accomplishments as jokers. (MINISTERS and KING laugh amongst themselves.) Most of all, the king loved to laugh at the misfortune of his fool he called Hop-Frog.

HOP-FROG: (ENTERS DOWN LEFT.) The name “Hop-Frog” was not that given by my sponsors at baptism, but was conferred upon me,

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ORANGE GUEST: In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,Leaping higher, higher, higher,With a desperate desire,And a resolute endeavorNow—now to sit or never,By the side of the pale-faced moon.Oh, the bells, bells, bells!What a tale their terror tellsOf despair!How they clang, and clash, and roar!What a horror they outpourOn the bosom of the palpitating air!Yet the ear, it fully knows,By the twanging,And the clanging,How the danger ebbs and flows.Yet, the ear distinctly tells,In the jangling,And the wrangling,How the danger sinks and swells,By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells—Of the bells—Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells—In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

WHITE GUEST: Hear the tolling of the bells—Iron bells!What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!In the silence of the night,How we shiver with affrightAt the melancholy meaning of their tone!For every sound that floatsFrom the rust within their throatsIs a groan.And the people—ah, the people—They that dwell up in the steeple,All alone,And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,In that muffled monotone,Feel a glory in so rollingOn the human heart a stone—

by general consent of the several ministers, on account of my inability to walk as other men do. (Moves across the stage. KING and MINISTERS laugh cruelly at him.)

JESTER: In fact, Hop-Frog could only get along by a sort of interjectional gait—something between a leap and a wriggle—a movement that afforded illimitable amusement. (HOP-FROG reaches the other side of the stage and meets TRIPPETTA as she ENTERS RIGHT. She fondly helps him sit at the front of the stage and checks that he is all right.) I am not able to say, with precision, from what country Hop-Frog originally came. It was a vast distance from the court of our king. Hop-Frog, and a young girl, had been forcibly carried off from their respective homes in adjoining provinces, and sent as presents to the king by one of his ever-victorious generals. Under these circumstances, it is not to be wondered at that a close intimacy arose between the two little captives. Indeed, they soon became sworn friends.

KING: A dance! (A MINISTER pulls TRIPPETTA to CENTER. SOUND EFFECT: DANCE MUSIC PLAYS. She dances for the COURT, who all clap and laugh. When the dance ends, she curtseys and returns to HOP-FROG.)

JESTER: On some grand state occasion—I forgot what—the king determined to have a masquerade, and whenever a masquerade or anything of that kind occurred at our court, then the talents, both of Hop-Frog and Trippetta, were sure to be called into play. Hop-Frog, in especial, was so inventive in the way of getting up pageants, suggesting novel characters, and arranging costumes for masked balls, that nothing could be done, it seems, without his assistance. (KING calls for HOP-FROG and laughs at how long it takes him to walk over.) The whole court was in a fever of expectation. As for costumes and characters, it might well be supposed that everybody had come to a decision on such points. Many had made up their minds as to what roles they should assume a week, or even a month, in advance. And, in fact, there was not a particle of indecision anywhere—except in the case of the king and his seven minsters. Why they hesitated, I never could tell, unless they did it by way of a joke.

MINISTER: Majesty, what shall we dress as this feast?KING: I know not, and it displeases me. I’m in an ill temper. We need

ideas and wine all around.JESTER: The king knew that Hop-Frog was not fond of wine, for it

excited the poor cripple almost to madness, and madness is no comfortable feeling. But the king loved his practical jokes, and took pleasure in forcing Hop-Frog to drink.

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BLUE GUEST: Hear the sledges with the bells—Silver bells!What a world of merriment their melody foretells!How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,In the icy air of night!While the stars that oversprinkleAll the heavens, seem to twinkleWith a crystalline delight,Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhyme,To the tintinnabulation that so musically wellsFrom the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells—From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

PURPLE GUEST: Hear the mellow wedding bellsGolden bells!What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!Through the balmy air of nightHow they ring out their delight!From the molten-golden notes,And all in tune,What a liquid ditty floatsTo the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloatsOn the moon!Oh, from out the sounding cells,What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!How it swells!How it dwells—

GREEN GUEST: On the Future! how it tellsOf the rapture that impelsTo the swinging and the ringingOf the bells, bells, bells,Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells—To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!Hear the loud alarum bells—Brazen bells!What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!In the startled ear of nightHow they scream out their affright! Too much horrified to speak,They can only shriek, shriek,Out of tune—

KING: Come, Hop-Frog, be merry. You do not want to displease your king. He wishes you to be merry. (A MINISTER forces a goblet into HOP-FROG’S hand. He sadly takes a sip.) More! Swallow this bumper to the health of your absent friends, and then let us have the benefit of your invention. We want characters—characters, man—something novel, out of the way. We are wearied with this everlasting sameness. Come, drink! The wine will brighten your wits. (HOP-FROG drinks more and is quite sad.) See what a glass of good wine can do! Why, your eyes are shining already!

MINISTER: What fun is it to watch a dwarf cry? We need costume ideas!KING: Have you an idea, Hop-Frog? Not yet? Drink more. And while you

think, let us have more entertainment. (Gestures for TRIPPETTA to dance again. She crosses CENTER.) No. I tire of dance. Something new. You! (Points to POE.)

POE: Me? (A MINISTER brings POE closer.)KING: Entertain me.POE: (At a loss, looks around for help. TRIPPETTA gives him an encouraging

nod.) I am a poet. I could recite a new poem. (KING claps assent. TRIPPETTA moves and POE takes CENTER. He concentrates and tries to find the proper words.) Once upon a midnight dreary. While I pondered, weak and—

KING: (Laughs.) A jest! What drivel is this!POE: It’s not meant to be a jest. It’s a poem meant to stand the test

of time. To survive when none of my loved ones do. To—KING: Bring back the dwarf! (MINISTERS shove POE aside. RAVEN helps

him away. The MINISTERS bring HOP-FROG to KING.) What did you think of?

HOP-FROG: I liked the poem.KING: Of costumes and masks! No ideas? Bring more wine!HOP-FROG: Sire, this drink affects me sorely. It is my birthday this day,

and your talk of absent friends fills me with sorrow.KING: All the more reason to drink. A toast to Hop-Frog. (Takes a goblet

from a MINISTER, forces it upon HOP-FROG, and makes him drink. MINISTERS gather around.)

TRIPPETTA: (Enters the throng and yells.) Stop it! No! Leave him alone! (MINISTERS back away and look toward KING. Now fearful, TRIPPETTA looks to KING, too. She drops to her knees before him.) Please, sire. I implore you to spare my friend. (KING regards her, then shoves her onto the ground and throws wine on her. Silence. TRIPPETTA slowly rises and retreats. MINISTERS laugh.)

HOP-FROG: Majesty, I have an idea.KING: Excellent. I knew proper motivation was all that was needed.

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PRINCE: It displeases me. There will be nothing red within these walls. (Rips the necklace off and throws it on the ground. SOUND EFFECT: SINGLE HEARTBEAT. POE crosses and picks up the necklace.) Anyone who disagrees can leave through the gate. But leave now, for I have a plan to keep out the pestilence permanently.

MASQUE NARRATOR: This was an extensive and magnificent castle, the creation of the prince’s own eccentric taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and hammers and welded the bolts. Then they were all encased.

PRINCE: An occasion for joy! Let us dance! (GUESTS begin to dance. RAVEN joins in, but then calls attention to the grandfather clock about to chime.)

MASQUE NARRATOR: It was in this dark apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang. And when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour… (SOUND EFFECT: CLOCK CHIMES. GUESTS stop dancing and listen nervously.) …the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound. And thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions, and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company. And, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly. The musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion. (GUESTS laugh it off amongst themselves and begin dancing again.) Then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before. (SOUND EFFECT: CLOCK CHIMES. GUESTS listen nervously again.) But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel.

PRINCE: Some more entertainment! Call for a jester! (JESTER ENTERS LEFT and juggles or entertains. He is applauded as he EXITS LEFT.) And now for a poem. (GUESTS cheer.) My guests, you must entertain me. (GUESTS gather and decide on a poem.)

HOP-FROG: I cannot tell what was the association of idea, but just after your majesty had struck the girl and thrown the wine in her face—just after your majesty had done this, there came into my mind a capital diversion—one of my own country frolics, often enacted among us, at our masquerades. But here it will be new altogether. Unfortunately, however, it requires a company of eight persons and—

KING: Here we are! Eight to a fraction—I and my seven ministers. Come! What is the diversion?

HOP-FROG: We call it the Eight Chained Orangutan, and it really is excellent sport if well enacted.

KING: We will enact it.HOP-FROG: The beauty of the game lies in the fright it occasions

among the women. (MINISTERS laugh and clap.) I will equip you as orangutans. Leave all that to me. The resemblance shall be so striking, that the company of masqueraders will take you for real beasts, and of course, they will be as much terrified as astonished.

KING: Oh, this is exquisite! Hop-Frog! I will make a man of you.HOP-FROG: The chains are for the purpose of increasing the

confusion by their jangling. You are supposed to have escaped, en masse, from your keepers. Your majesty cannot conceive the effect produced at a masquerade by eight chained orangutans, imagined to be real ones by most of the company, and rushing in with savage cries, among the crowd of delicately and gorgeously habited men and women. The contrast is inimitable!

KING: It must be! (HOP-FROG opens the chest, pulls out orangutan costumes, and hands them out. The COURT puts down their goblets and starts to change into their costumes.)

JESTER: Hop-Frog’s mode of equipping the party as orangutans was very simple but effective enough for his purposes. The animals in question had, at the epoch of my story, very rarely been seen in any part of the civilized world, and as the imitations made by the dwarf were sufficiently beast-like and more than sufficiently hideous, their truthfulness to nature was thus thought to be secured.

MINISTER: Shouldn’t we use more hair in our costumes?HOP-FROG: No. Tar and flax is the best combination. Trust me, I have

seen beasts in my life.KING: We look hideous! This is the best idea I’ve had. (ALL are

now changed.)HOP-FROG: And now for the chain. (Crosses to the chest and pull out

a large chain. He connects the COURT together.)KING: I cannot wait for tonight!

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PURPLE GUEST: To match the decor of the purple room, this look will have to do.

GREEN GUEST: His green casements are found in his green room, and there indeed I should fit in.

ORANGE GUEST: My vest is orange to match his orange room. Its shade could be my twin.

WHITE GUEST: In matching his white decor, it looks as I should find a groom.

VIOLET GUEST: And violet is my lovely dress to match his violet room.WIDOW: And I… (Looks worriedly at her black dress and ruby pendant.)MASQUE NARRATOR: The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in

black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet—a deep blood color.

WIDOW: Becoming a widow to the Red Death, I had much black to wear.MASQUE NARRATOR: In the western or black chamber, the effect of

the firelight that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes was ghastly in the extreme and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.

WIDOW: And so I suppose, I match this scary seventh room.PRINCE: (Greets GUESTS, kissing the hands of the ladies and laughing

joyfully at their apparel.) Lords and ladies, you please me with your finery. Why, you match my castle chambers!

BLUE GUEST: We only aim to please!WHITE GUEST: We do so love your parties.WIDOW: And we appreciate your giving us sanctuary here.PRINCE: Sanctuary? From what? There is no outside world if I say

there is not.WIDOW: So the thousands who have died?PRINCE: What I do not wish to be troubled by, I will not be troubled by.

I invited only those I thought would bring me amusement. (GUESTS ad-lib thanks to him. WIDOW stands, concerned.) There exists only what my whims allow to exist in my halls.

WIDOW: I see.PRINCE: (Moves closer to her and sees the necklace.) What is this?WIDOW: A gem. It was a gift from—

HOP-FROG: Me neither, sire. (Leads the COURT OFF LEFT. GUESTS and WIDOW ENTER in costume. BLACK CAT ENTERS as well and mingles as one of the guests. SOUND EFFECT: MUSIC PLAYS. GUESTS mingle and dance. POE sees WIDOW and fights through the crowd to her.)

POE: Shall we dance? (SOUND EFFECT: CLOCK CHIMES and the MUSIC STOPS. HOP-FROG leads the COURT ON LEFT, holding a torch. GUESTS recoil in fear.)

HOP-FROG: Behold! Wild beasts escaped! (KING and his MINISTERS enjoy scaring the crowd.) Fear not! I will wrangle these animals! (A chandelier ring is lowered, and HOP-FROG attaches the COURT to it. They are still having a good time, pretending to be animals.) Leave them to me. I fancy I know them. If I can only get a good look at them, I can soon tell who they are. (KING and his MINISTERS laugh. HOP-FROG, TRIPPETTA and JESTER pull a long chain. The chandelier appears to rise. [See PRODUCTION NOTES.] GUESTS back away as LIGHTS SHIFT to JESTER. [NOTE: HOP-FROG and COURT EXIT in the DARKNESS.])

JESTER: And now, while the whole assembly—the apes included—were convulsed with laughter, the chain flew violently up for about thirty feet, dragging with it the dismayed and struggling orangutans, and leaving them suspended in midair between the skylight and the floor. Hop-Frog climbed the chain and still, as if nothing were the matter, continued to thrust his torch down toward them, as though endeavoring to discover who they were.

HOP-FROG: (From OFF.) Ah, ha! Ah, ha! I begin to see who these people are now!

JESTER: Here, pretending to scrutinize the king more closely, he held the flambeau to the flaxen coat which enveloped him and which instantly burst into a sheet of vivid flame. In less than half a minute, the whole eight orangutans were blazing fiercely amid the shrieks of the multitude who gazed at them from below, horror-stricken, and without the power to render them the slightest assistance. (LIGHTS turn RED, and the COURT screams as they catch fire. They slowly quiet and become still, dead. GUESTS murmur and cry out.)

HOP-FROG: (ENTERS, as if leaping down from above.) I now see distinctly what manner of people these maskers are. They are a great king and his seven privy councilors—a king who does not scruple to strike a defenseless girl and his seven councilors who abet him in the outrage. As for myself, I am simply Hop-Frog, the jester—and this is my last jest. (DUPIN laughs from OFF LEFT. He and TRIPPETTA run OFF RIGHT. Except BLACK CAT, GUESTS EXIT, shocked. POE tries to find and follow WIDOW but loses her as she EXITS LEFT. RAVEN returns KING’S chair. SOUND EFFECT: A

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MASQUE NARRATOR: (Aside, to PRINCE.) But how long can the party last?

PRINCE: It will last as long as I say it will!MASQUE NARRATOR: Even in the face of the Red Death? (PRINCE

is offended and storms OFF.) The Red Death had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its avatar and its seal—the redness and the horror of blood. (RAVEN and a few DANCERS dance a symbolic death as MASQUE NARRATOR moves DOWN CENTER and describes the illness.) There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution.

POE: I do not like this. (RAVEN and DANCERS continue to dance.)MASQUE NARRATOR: The scarlet stains upon the body and especially

upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow men.

POE: I do not like this. The bloody death is too reminiscent of my Virginia’s illness.

MASQUE NARRATOR: And the whole seizure, progression, and termination of the disease were the incidents of half an hour.

POE: Stop this! I asked for revels. (Dance concludes. RAVEN rises from her death pose and moves POE away to comfort him.)

PRINCE: (ENTERS and crosses CENTER.) Revels we shall have. When the outside is doom and despair, inside my castle shall be merriment to the extreme. And then why think we of the outside world?

MASQUE NARRATOR: Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. (DANCERS chase the GUESTS to the CENTER of the party, and then EXIT, having not been invited within.)

PRINCE: It is folly to grieve or to think on it. Come, my guests. (GUESTS and WIDOW revel.)

MASQUE NARRATOR: It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first, of the rooms in which it was held. There were seven—an imperial suite. As might have been expected from the prince’s love of the bizarre, the apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. In each room were windows of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened.

BLUE GUEST: I match the prince’s first room in a vivid shade of blue.

SINGLE HEARTBEAT is heard through the continuing laughter. POE is unnerved. BLACK CAT goes to the desk and paws at his items. He considers stopping her, but RAVEN directs his attention to those entering. Segue.)

End of Scene Three

ACT TWOScene Four

DUPIN ENTERS LEFT, still laughing, with POLICE ONE and POLICE TWO. RAVEN EXITS RIGHT.

POLICE ONE: What’s so funny?POLICE TWO: I don’t get it. The joke or the crime.DUPIN: The joke is the crime.POLICE ONE: Didn’t seem too funny to me.POLICE TWO: It was downright grisly.POLICE ONE: Mother and daughter killed.POLICE TWO: And in funny ways.POLICE ONE: One stuffed up the chimney. (RAVEN ENTERS

RIGHT, leading MADAME L’ESPANAYE to CENTER. Her throat has been slashed.)

POLICE TWO: And the other with her throat slashed.POLICE ONE: Poor Madame L’Espanaye.POLICE TWO: Makes me not want to travel by the Rue Morgue

anymore. (MADAME L’ESPANAYE watches them.)DUPIN: I mean no disrespect to the unfortunate victims. Instead,

I laugh at the absurdity of the answer to this crime. It seems outrageous when one first considers it. But when all is held to light, it can be the only possible solution.

POLICE ONE: Which is?POLICE TWO: He means, please tell us, Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin,

great detective.POE: (To RAVEN.) This is what is needed! A great detective to find the

order in the chaos. A master of ratiocination. Perhaps the only one who can find the answer to the madness of this night…

DUPIN: Consider the facts.POLICE TWO: We’re considering.DUPIN: All the assembled neighbors who heard a commotion and

came to offer assistance heard a foreign voice, yet none could decipher what language was truly spoken.

POLICE ONE: True. Some said Italian. Some Russian.POLICE TWO: English. German.

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MAD NARRATOR: While I, myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim.

POLICE ONE: I suppose there’s nothing to report here.POLICE TWO: Nothing report-worthy. (SOUND EFFECT: FAINT

HEARTBEAT. POLICE don’t hear it. MAD NARRATOR is confused.)POLICE ONE: But we do appreciate the seats.POLICE TWO: We were on our feet all night. This is a welcome relief.

(SOUND EFFECT: FAINT HEARTBEAT.)MAD NARRATOR: Yes, yes. You’re welcome. (SOUND EFFECT: FAINT

HEARTBEAT. MAD NARRATOR becomes agitated.) So, did anyone, um, hear any good poems lately?

POLICE ONE: Once upon a midnight— (SOUND EFFECT: FAINT HEARTBEAT. MAD NARRATOR jumps up. SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT gets LOUDER and MORE FREQUENT. POLICE ONE is confused.)

POLICE TWO: (To POLICE ONE.) I’ve told you not to recite poetry. (SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT gets LOUDER and LOUDER. MAD NARRATOR covers his ears.)

POE: (Covers his ears.) Make it stop! Make it stop! (With his cries, the HEARTBEAT STOPS. RAVEN moves POLICE and MAD NARRATOR OFF LEFT in silence, pulling the wall back UP LEFT to its original position. She removes the sheet from the bed and covers it in a black sheet, pushing it into the UP LEFT corner. POE breathes heavily and sits down. SOUND EFFECT: SINGLE HEARTBEAT. POE is nervous.) I need some distraction from this terror. I call for revelry. Something pleasing must be found on a night such as this. (RAVEN gestures and SOUND EFFECT: MUSIC PLAYS. RED DEATH DANCERS ENTER RIGHT and begin to dance around the stage, while GUESTS ENTER LEFT. The chairs are replaced along the UPSTAGE wall and banners for the castle are hung by GUESTS. WIDOW ENTERS and along with GUESTS spread around the stage, reveling. POE is appeased. PRINCE PROSPERO ENTERS LEFT followed by the MASQUE NARRATOR. PRINCE crosses CENTER. Segue.)

End of Scene Two

ACT ONEScene Three

PRINCE: Welcome to Prince Prospero’s court. Never a finer masquerade will you find than inside these walls. A lover of parties and all things bizarre, I ensure an interesting time for all those invited. Come to my castle and partake in the fun.

DUPIN: (Turns to MADAME L’ESPANAYE as a model.) Also, consider how the throat was slashed. Very deep mutilations. Unskilled. Which points to—

POLICE ONE: We should also consider the chimney.POLICE TWO: How the other young woman was pushed up there.

(MADAME L’ESPANAYE becomes sad.)DUPIN: A feat of extreme strength.POLICE ONE: It also seems familiar somehow… a body hidden…POLICE TWO: Yes! We were working on that other case... (While the

POLICE talk, DUPIN gently leads MADAME L’ESPANAYE OFF RIGHT.)POLICE ONE: And I started to recite a poem. “Once upon a midnight”—

(SOUND EFFECT: A SINGLE HEARTBEAT.)POLICE TWO: I told you not to recite that one.POLICE ONE: (Notices DUPIN is gone.) Where did Monsieur Dupin go?POLICE TWO: (Calls OFF.) Wait! Dupin, who did it? (POLICE run OFF

RIGHT. POE starts to follow, but RAVEN prevents him.)POE: There goes the last semblance of reason. (Picks up a goblet left

behind by MINISTERS and crosses to his desk. BLACK CAT notices RAVEN and chases her around the stage.) Needed on a night such as this. (Sits and drinks. CAT’S OWNER ENTERS UP RIGHT. Segue.)

End of Scene Four

ACT TWOScene Five

OWNER: Mind if I join you?POE: By all means. (OWNER picks up a goblet, and they both drink

together, watching BLACK CAT.)OWNER: Is that your raven?POE: It is no man’s.OWNER: I claim the cat as my own. (BLACK CAT chases RAVEN UP

CENTER onto the chairs and chest.)POE: I am becoming increasingly fond of him.OWNER: I’ve always been fond of animals. All sorts. Since my

childhood. But I am especially fond of this cat. I call him Pluto. (BLACK CAT abandons RAVEN and joins the MEN.)

POE: Hello there. You seem a kinder creature than those I have encountered of late.

OWNER: He was a gift from my wife. She knows I dote upon him, though she teases me.

WIFE: (ENTERS UP RIGHT.) You know what they say about black cats? OWNER: (Turns to her.) What do they say?

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SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT WANES, and MAD NARRATOR relaxes.) If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. (Crosses DOWN to narrate and LIGHTS follow him. OLD MAN EXITS in the dark.) First of all, I dismembered the corpse. I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye—not even his—could have detected anything wrong. There was nothing to wash out—no stain of any kind—no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. Ha! Ha! (Relaxes and sits on the bed.) When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o’clock—

POE: Still dark as midnight.MAD NARRATOR: And then at the door… (POLICE OFFICERS ENTER

LEFT and KNOCK at the door. MAD NARRATOR opens it and lets them in.)

POLICE ONE: We’re with the police department.POLICE TWO: A neighbor heard a shriek.POLICE ONE: Asked us to investigate.POLICE TWO: Make sure there’s no foul play.MAD NARRATOR: No foul play here, officers.POLICE ONE: Mind if we look around?POLICE TWO: Just to be sure. (SOUND EFFECT: FAINT HEARTBEAT

is heard.)MAD NARRATOR: Not at all. (POLICE look around the room.) The

shriek that was heard must have been me. I had a nightmare. I must have yelled in my sleep.

POLICE ONE: A nightmare?MAD NARRATOR: Yes. Of a black bird. Woke me right up.POLICE TWO: And where’s the old man?POLICE ONE: The old man who owns the house?MAD NARRATOR: He’s traveling. Not home. Here, let me show you

around. (Shows POLICE around.) I took my visitors all over the house. I bade them search—search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. I showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my confidence— (Pulls down three UPSTAGE chairs.) I brought chairs into the room, and desired them to rest from their fatigues. (To POLICE.) Why don’t you two sit a moment?

POLICE ONE: Much obliged.POLICE TWO: That’s very kind.

WIFE: They’re witches in disguise. (OWNER laughs and she joins in, then EXITS UP RIGHT.)

OWNER: (To POE.) She jokes about superstition.POE: You’re a lucky man.OWNER: I’m sure we could find you a cat. (Drinks deep.) Perhaps not

one with pure black fur, like the ebony Pluto. But there are many cats in the world.

POE: I meant instead your wife. A jovial woman.OWNER: Are you married?POE: Yes. But losing her. It’s a terrible thing. Illness.OWNER: Yes. I know plenty of that. I have an illness of my own.POE: You do?OWNER: For what disease is like alcohol? (Drinks.) It fills me with the

most perverse notions, for those I love, I tend to destroy.POE: Should you continue drinking then?OWNER: Do you mean to stop me?POE: We contribute to our own madness. I, for one, will stop myself.

(Sets his goblet down. OWNER takes it for himself.)OWNER: (Drinks.) It fills me with a fiendish malevolence. My animals

feel the effect, but not my Pluto. Never my Pluto. (Grabs onto BLACK CAT, but holds too hard, hurting him. BLACK CAT bites OWNER, who lets go but then snaps. He grabs BLACK CAT and drags it behind the desk. He pulls a penknife from his pocket.)

POE: What do you think you’re doing?OWNER: (Attacks BLACK CAT, until POE finally pulls him away. Calms

down.) Sorry for spoiling the party. (Sits on the edge of Poe’s desk. POE moves away and is joined by RAVEN. BLACK CAT emerges, wearing a mask with only one eye.) When reason returned with the morning—when I had slept off the fumes of the night’s debauch—I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I was guilty. (Stands and tries to approach BLACK CAT, who shrinks away.) The cat fled in extreme terror at my approach. (Frantically drains the remaining goblets.) I again plunged into excess and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed. Here, kitty, kitty. Pluto. (Again approaches BLACK CAT, who runs away.) My feeling soon gave way to irritation. And my action was needed. (After some pursuit, catches BLACK CAT and drags it OFF LEFT. OWNER ENTERS LEFT, slowly.) It was an unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself. I hung it because I knew it had loved me. And because I felt it had given me no reason of offence. (Falls into the desk chair and cries himself to sleep. WIFE ENTERS

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POE: Just at midnight.MAD NARRATOR: Just at midnight, when all the world slept, it had

welled up from my own bosom—POE: Deepening—MAD NARRATOR: With its dreadful echo—POE: The terrors that distracted me.MAD NARRATOR: I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt,

and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise, when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself—

OLD MAN: It is nothing but the wind in the chimney. It is only a mouse crossing the floor.

MAD NARRATOR: Or—OLD MAN: It is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp.MAD NARRATOR: Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with

these suppositions, but he had found all in vain. All in vain. Because death, in approaching him, had stalked with his black shadow before him and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel—although he neither saw nor heard—to feel the presence of my head within the room. (OLD MAN cowers in fear.) When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little—a very, very little—crevice in the lantern. So I opened it—you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily—until at length, a simple dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice… (LIGHTING EFFECT: A SLIVER OF LIGHT comes from the lantern. RAVEN directs the light to shine on OLD MAN.) …and fell full upon the vulture eye. It was open—wide, wide open—and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. (SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT gets FASTER and LOUDER.) And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses? Now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man’s heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. (SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT gets LOUDER and LOUDER until he can take it no longer.) The old man’s hour had come! (Pounces upon OLD MAN, grabs the pillow, and shoves it over OLD MAN’S face. OLD MAN struggles and lets out a single shriek of terror. OLD MAN stops moving, but when MAD NARRATOR starts to let up, the HEARTBEAT continues. Finally,

UP RIGHT. LIGHTING EFFECT: FIRE BURNS. RAVEN dances around, fanning the flames.)

WIFE: Help! Fire! (Helps OWNER to his feet.) Our house is on fire! We must hurry. (Helps OWNER OFF RIGHT. RAVEN EXITS DOWN RIGHT, pulls ON the crumbling stone wall, and positions it LEFT as the FIRE BURNS OUT. OWNER and WIFE ENTER DOWN RIGHT and look at the ashes.) Our home.

OWNER: Destroyed. WIFE: And that’s strange. Look at that marking in the soot.OWNER: Where?WIFE: There. It looks like… like a cat hung from a noose.OWNER: No. It doesn’t. You silly woman. (Ushers WIFE OFF RIGHT.)

When I first beheld this apparition, my wonder and terror were extreme. But at length, reflection came to my aid. The cat was hanged in the garden adjoining the house. When the fire began, someone… (Points at POE.) …must have thrown the cat inside. Perhaps to wake me. To warn me of the fire. (OWNER drinks again. BLACK CAT ENTERS LEFT, wearing the original mask and all black, except for a white fur patch. He approaches OWNER.) One night upon my way toward my new abode, I stumbled upon a black cat as large as Pluto and closely resembling him in every respect but one—a large, though indefinite, splotch of white fur. (BLACK CAT allows OWNER to pet him and purrs.) I offered to purchase it from the landlord, but the person made no claim of it—knew nothing of it—had never seen it before. (Crosses UP RIGHT with BLACK CAT as WIFE ENTERS UP RIGHT.)

WIFE: A new cat. And so similar to Pluto. This new place is truly is our home now. (OWNER sits at the desk. BLACK CAT inspects the room.)

OWNER: But soon the cat came to fill me with dread.WIFE: It’s just a cat, dear.OWNER: Oh, no. No. It is a demon. The witch you spoke of.WIFE: I was joking.OWNER: This is no joke. There is an evil inside it.WIFE: He just wants some milk.OWNER: It is Pluto come back.WIFE: Why would that be a bad thing?OWNER: Because I killed him.WIFE: What?OWNER: He didn’t die in the fire. I killed him. With my own hands.WIFE: But why?OWNER: I don’t know.

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POE: Midnight.MAD NARRATOR: But I found the eye always closed, and so it was

impossible to do the work. For it was not the old man who vexed me, but his evil eye. And every morning, when the day broke—(Energetically ENTERS the room to greet OLD MAN.) Good morning. Did you sleep well?

OLD MAN: Yes, thank you. Perhaps a strange dream, but…MAD NARRATOR: A dream?POE: A strange dream for me as well.OLD MAN: I slept fine.MAD NARRATOR: So you see, he would have been a very profound old

man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.

OLD MAN: Care for some breakfast?MAD NARRATOR: (Helps OLD MAN back into bed, and it is night again.

MAD NARRATOR begins sneaking through the door again.) Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. A watch’s minute hand moves more quickly than did mine. Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea, and perhaps he heard me, for he moved on the bed suddenly, as if startled. (OLD MAN moves.) Now you may think that I drew back, but no. His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness, and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily. I had my head in and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening… (His thumb slips and makes a slight nose on the lantern.) …and—

OLD MAN: (Sits up in bed, frightened. SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT.) Who’s there?

MAD NARRATOR: (Freezes. OLD MAN listens. They wait.) I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour, I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime, I did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed, listening—just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to the deathwatches in the wall. (Both wait and listen some more.) Presently, I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. (OLD MAN lets out a frightened groan.) It was not a groan of pain or of grief. Oh, no! It was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night—

WIFE: Well… this cat isn’t Pluto. This cat has white fur. Pluto had none.OWNER: Yes. That’s true.WIFE: Now can you stop worrying about the cat and bring in

some firewood?OWNER: Yes. The white spot is different. (Picks up an axe and looks

at BLACK CAT’S spot.) The white spot! Look!WIFE: I see it.OWNER: It’s in the shape of a gallows.WIFE: It’s merely a spot.OWNER: It wears a gallows on its fur. Tell me you see it.WIFE: I don’t.OWNER: Tell me you see it! (Grabs her arm.)WIFE: Ow. I see it.OWNER: I’ve got to stop this cat. I’ve got to stop this evil before it gets

me. (SOUND EFFECT: A SINGLE HEARTBEAT.) I’ve got to stop it.WIFE: You stop this! Leave the cat alone.OWNER: (Heads after BLACK CAT with the axe.) Here, kitty.WIFE: Stop this!OWNER: (Swings for BLACK CAT, but WIFE grabs him. He turns on WIFE

and kills her with the axe as BLACK CAT hides behind the stone wall. Pause. Realizes what he did and drops the axe. Looks for BLACK CAT.) What did you make me do? Cat! Fiend! It’s gone. (Paces.) What do I do? (Gets an idea. He crosses to the stone wall and removes some stones, revealing the recess.)

POE: Wait… (Watches more intently as OWNER places WIFE’S body in the recess.) …this is familiar to me. I know this crime. (OWNER quickly replaces the stones, covering the recess. SOUND EFFECT: A FAINT HEARTBEAT.)

MAD NARRATOR: (ENTERS RIGHT. Paces.) The perfect crime.OWNER: I cannot be caught. (POLICE ENTER RIGHT and cross CENTER.)POLICE ONE: (To OWNER.) So no sign of your wife, then?POLICE TWO: No sight, sound, or smell of her?OWNER: I do hope you find her.POLICE ONE: Us too.POLICE TWO: Yes. That’s our job. Finding people. With or without a

Monsieur Dupin.POLICE ONE: And so far, there’s been no evidence of foul play.POLICE TWO: Though it does seem suspicious, her disappearing right

after you get this new home.

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degrees—very gradually—I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever. Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing.

POE: That is seemingly true.MAD NARRATOR: But you should have seen me. You should have seen

how wisely I proceeded—with what caution, with what foresight, with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. (EXITS LEFT and immediately RE-ENTERS with a basket. To OLD MAN.) I’ve brought home fresh vegetables for us. Fresh and beautiful.

OLD MAN: What’s the occasion?MAD NARRATOR: Why is an occasion necessary? It is merely a meal

of affection.OLD MAN: Then, thank you, friend.MAD NARRATOR: Is there anything I can do around the house to help

you? Anything at all?OLD MAN: There are some floorboards loose, if you would care to

fix them.MAD NARRATOR: Of course, I can. I care. Of course. (Adjusts

the floorboards.)OLD MAN: Thank you again.MAD NARRATOR: Anything new to discuss? Exciting happenings

among the neighbors?OLD MAN: The Allans are taking in a young ward. It’s unclear if they’ll

actually adopt him.MAD NARRATOR: Fascinating, fascinating. Now sleep tight tonight.

(Helps OLD MAN into bed and pulls the covers up over him.) Every night about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it—oh so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern—all closed, closed, that no light shone out—and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly—very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man’s sleep. (Sticks a lantern through the door and then sticks in his head ever so slowly. RAVEN dances through the scene to watch.) It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! Would a madman have been so wise as this? And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously—oh, so cautiously—cautiously, for the hinges creaked—I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights—every night just at midnight.

OWNER: I don’t understand it. She never said she didn’t like it. But our cat is missing too. Perhaps she left and took it with her.

POLICE ONE: Perhaps.POLICE TWO: Perhaps.POLICE ONE: It is a nice house.POLICE TWO: Sturdy and strong.OWNER: Thank you. I think so too. (Knocks on the stone wall to

emphasize the point. BLACK CAT lets out a loud meow from inside the wall.)

POLICE ONE: What was that?OWNER: Nothing.POLICE TWO: It came from inside the wall.OWNER: That’s ridiculous. (POLICE remove some stones.)POLICE ONE: There’s a body inside. I’m guessing it’s the missus.

(BLACK CAT emerges from the recess and waves. POLICE ONE grabs OWNER and starts to take him RIGHT as RAVEN moves the stone wall OFF LEFT. SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT gets FASTER and LOUDER. It becomes increasingly provoking for MAD NARRATOR.)

POLICE TWO: (Notices MAD NARRATOR.) Stop. Something is wrong with him. (SOUND EFFECT: HEARTBEAT gets LOUDER.)

MAD NARRATOR: (Covers his ears.) I gasped for breath, and yet the officers heard it not. Oh God! What could I do? I foamed, I raved, I swore! I swung a chair and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder, louder, louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not?

POLICE ONE: (Jokes.) What’s the matter with him, eh?POLICE TWO: Think it has something to do with that dream he

mentioned? With the black bird?MAD NARRATOR: Almighty God—no, no! They heard! They suspected!

They knew! They were making a mockery of my horror! This I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony!

POLICE ONE: Are you all right?POLICE TWO: Anything you’d like to tell us?POLICE ONE: We’re here to help.POLICE TWO: We’re police.MAD NARRATOR: Anything was more tolerable than this derision!

I felt that I must scream or die! And now—again! Hark! Louder! Louder! Louder! Louder! (Cannot escape the sound. POE pushes him toward the spot where the body was buried in the floor.) Villains! Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! Tear up the planks! Here,

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With a love that the wingèd seraphs of HeavenCoveted her and me.

MAD NARRATOR: I found these stories neither boring nor unpleasant.OLD MAN: And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,A wind blew out of a cloud, chillingMy beautiful Annabel Lee.So that her highborn kinsmen cameAnd bore her away from me,To shut her up in a sepulchreIn this kingdom by the sea.

MAD NARRATOR: His voice was pleasing to me.OLD MAN: The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

Went envying her and me.Yes! That was the reason, as all men know,In this kingdom by the sea,That the wind came out of the cloud by night,Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

POE: I know this poem.OLD MAN: But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we—Of many far wiser than we—And neither the angels in Heaven aboveNor the demons down under the seaCan ever dissever my soul from the soulOf the beautiful Annabel Lee.

MAD NARRATOR: And during these tellings, I would feel close to the old man. His past alive for me.

POE: But how? This is mine. It’s mine.OLD MAN: For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyesOf the beautiful Annabel Lee.And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the sideOf my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,In her sepulchre there by the sea—In her tomb by the sounding sea.

MAD NARRATOR: (Congratulates OLD MAN on the tale, but once the congratulations are over, realizes.) I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture—a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold. And so by

here! It is the beating of his hideous heart! (HEARTBEAT STOPS. POLICE TWO grabs MAD NARRATOR. DUPIN ENTERS RIGHT.)

POLICE ONE: There you are.POLICE TWO: We were just bringing these prisoners in.DUPIN: I deduced as much.POLICE ONE: He is smart.POLICE TWO: Before we go, you want to tell us who was the Rue

Morgue murderer?DUPIN: But of course. (RAVEN turns accusingly on MAD NARRATOR

and OWNER. KING and his COURT ENTER LEFT, still dressed as orangutans. They line up as suspects.)

POE: (Sizes them up.) Which one?DUPIN: It was… Edgar Allan Poe.POLICE ONE: Oh, well. That explains it.POLICE TWO: Thanks for telling us. (POLICE escort MAD NARRATOR,

OWNER, and the COURT OFF RIGHT. POE and DUPIN face off, as RAVEN observes.)

POE: You’re mad.DUPIN: No. It is not I who is mad.POE: I haven’t killed anyone.DUPIN: You’ve killed everyone. You’ve created them all, true. Myself

included. But our fates are often doomed.POE: You don’t know of what you speak.DUPIN: You create people for the sole purpose of terrorizing them.POE: No. That’s not their sole purpose. (Turns away, thinking.)DUPIN: Of that I am skeptical, and I am a great detective. (EXITS LEFT.)POE: That’s not why. It’s for art. And it could be great art! To stand the

test of time. (Turns to find DUPIN gone.) If I could only figure out the right words… then it’s not all… (Paces, annoyed by RAVEN.) Once upon a midnight… Oh, let this night end! (Crosses to front of the desk. Calls up to the location of the pendulum.) Let the end of the pendulum swing down! There is too much to fear. In these waking dreams—the loss, the death, the constant fear of madness. And in my waking life, too. I fear my feud with my partial father John Allan will never be resolved. I fear I cannot save and can never replace the love for my darling Virginia. I fear I will die alone, that my death will be unmarked, and that even my beloved mother-in-law and only family will not know of my passing ’til days after. (RAVEN moves closer.) With all these fears, there is no need to fear you. (RAVEN moves closer, removes a feather, and hands it to POE.

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MAD NARRATOR: The disease had sharpened my senses—not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth.

POE: All things?MAD NARRATOR: (Gestures to POE.) I heard many things in hell.POE: That’s fitting. (RAVEN directs MAD NARRATOR’S attention back to

the AUDIENCE and the story. POE moves back to observe.)MAD NARRATOR: How, then, am I mad? Harken! And observe how

healthily—how calmly—I can tell you the whole story. (OLD MAN ENTERS RIGHT.) It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.

OLD MAN: Good morning.MAD NARRATOR: Good morning! (Enthusiastically greets OLD MAN,

who turns his attention to his room, fixing his bed.) The need to take the life of the old man. Object, there was none. Passion, there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me.

OLD MAN: You could use a warm room.MAD NARRATOR: He had never given me insult.OLD MAN: Would you like some breakfast?MAD NARRATOR: For his gold, I had no desire.OLD MAN: What’s mine is yours, friend.MAD NARRATOR: We would chat amiably.OLD MAN: What do you think the weather will be?MAD NARRATOR: (To OLD MAN.) A sane man knows you cannot

predict the weather.OLD MAN: That’s true enough.MAD NARRATOR: And sometimes he would tell me stories.OLD MAN: Once upon a midnight—MAD NARRATOR: Not that one.POE: Wait— (RAVEN shushes him.)MAD NARRATOR: He would tell me stories.OLD MAN: It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,That a maiden there lived, whom you may knowBy the name of Annabel Lee.And this maiden she lived with no other thoughtThan to love and be loved by me.I was a child and she was a child,In this kingdom by the sea,But we loved with a love that was more than love—I and my Annabel Lee—

POE looks at the feather—a quill. Suddenly inspired, he sits at his desk and writes, quickly and happily. Segue.)

End of Scene Five

ACT TWOScene Six

RAVEN: (Narrates as POE writes.) Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—Only this and nothing more.”

DUPIN: (ENTERS LEFT.) Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.Eagerly I wished the morrow. Vainly, I had sought to borrowFrom my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—Nameless here for evermore.

HOP-FROG: (ENTERS RIGHT.) And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before—So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door,Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—This it is and nothing more.”

WIDOW: (ENTERS UP RIGHT.) Presently my soul grew stronger, hesitating then no longer.

“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore,But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,That I scarce was sure I heard you.” Here I opened wide the door—Darkness there and nothing more.

RODERICK: (ENTERS UP LEFT.) Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—Merely this and nothing more.

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sought. Some moments of pure happiness. (VIRGINIA ENTERS UP RIGHT through the door. RAVEN ushers her forward. VIRGINIA starts to sing a melancholy tune.) Until one night, mid-song… (VIRGINIA’S song is cut short by a cough. She pulls out a handkerchief and coughs up blood.) …I learned she would not be long for this world. Much as I tried to deny it, she would be like the others. (ELIZA and FANNY ENTER UP RIGHT through the door.) My own mother, Eliza Poe, an actress, gave a moving death scene before me when I was a child. And Fanny Allan, the woman who would raise me, succumbed to illness as well. (WOMEN move closer and closer to POE. He feels their presence but is fearful to face them.)

For, alas—alas!—with meThe light of life is o’er!No more, no more, no more—Such language holds the solemn seaTo the sands upon the shore,Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,Or the stricken eagle soar!And all my days are trances,And all my nightly dreamsAre where thy grey eye glances,And where thy footstep gleams—In what ethereal dances,By what eternal streams. (Finishes the recitation as RAVEN weaves in between WOMEN.) I can feel their presence. It is but fear that keeps them from me. (WOMEN EXIT RIGHT just before POE gains courage, stands and turns to face them. He sits down. RAVEN moves mockingly closer.) I am going mad, I fear. Like the characters in my stories. (MAD NARRATOR ENTERS LEFT and, beckoned by RAVEN, they move the LEFT wall DOWN CENTER and angle it so the AUDIENCE can see both sides. The bed is moved CENTER. Segue.)

End of Scene OneNOTE: Scene breaks are indicated for rehearsal purposes only, and stage action should flow continuously.

ACT ONEScene Two

POE/MAD NARRATOR: True—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am.

MAD NARRATOR: (Moves to POE.) But why will you say that I am mad?POE: Why?

TRIPPETTA: (ENTERS RIGHT.) Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice.Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore—’Tis the wind and nothing more!”

OLD MAN: (ENTERS LEFT.) Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.Not the least obeisance made he, not a minute stopped or stayed he,But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

OWNER: (ENTERS UP RIGHT.) Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore—Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”Quoth the raven—

RAVEN: Nevermore.POLICE ONE: (ENTERS RIGHT.) Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,

Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore.For we cannot help agreeing that no living human beingEver yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,With such name as—

RAVEN: Nevermore.POLICE TWO: (ENTERS UP LEFT.) But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only

That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—’Til I scarcely more than muttered, “Other friends have flown before—On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.”Then the bird said—

RAVEN: Nevermore.FORTUNATO: (ENTERS LEFT.) Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and storeCaught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster

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POE: DREAMS OF MADNESS

ACT ONEScene One

AT RISE: LIGHTS UP LOW on POE’S study UP RIGHT. SOUND EFFECT: EERIE MUSIC sets the scene for the author’s insomnia. It is late, dark, and spooky. SOUND EFFECT: CREAKING. POE ENTERS UP RIGHT through the door, holding a candle. He crosses to the side table and lights the candles. LIGHTS UP SLOWLY as the candles are lit. Poe grabs his black jacket off the coatrack and puts it on over his nightclothes, then sits down at his desk, dejected.POE: I am haunted by dreams, even when I wake. And so I wander

in this dazed stupor, unsure if I am awake or asleep, unsure if I am alive. No… I must be alive, for I am alone. Always alone. (Feels a draft and closes the open window.) I thought I had found surcease of sorrow with my wife. But instead, torment. She is dying, and I will lose her. Or have I lost her already? (Sits again at his desk.) I fear I have lost my sanity. (RAVEN reopens the window from the other side of the wall. POE is unaware of her.) I am not myself. Where am I now? Richmond, where I grew up with the Allans? Boston, where I was born? Philadelphia? Baltimore, where I will…? Or am I stuck in a nightmare? (RAVEN sticks her head through the window to watch.) That seems most likely. What time does it say? (Looks at grandfather clock.) Near midnight. That seems like a fitting setting for one of my stories. Perhaps a story from which I cannot escape. Midnight. (Ponders the idea. RAVEN ENTERS through the window and perches nearby to watch him.) Once upon a midnight… (Searches for the right word.) Creepy? No. A midnight… sorrowful? No. Once upon a midnight squishy? Not at all! Dark? Bleak? Eerie? No, not quite it. A midnight… (Thinks, then sees RAVEN.) A midnight of madness! (Watches as RAVEN moves forward and slowly starts to dance. He is enraptured by RAVEN’S dance and receives inspiration. He shuffles his papers, ready to write.) Once upon a midnight… (Becomes frazzled when he can’t find something to write with.) No quills. There’s nothing to write with, even if there were something to write! (Slams the papers down on the desk, and RAVEN abruptly stops dancing. She prances closer to POE.) What vision is this? What is your purpose? What do you want? (Twirls in his seat and stares at RAVEN, unnerved.) Ebony bird, leave my loneliness unbroken. Let me be! (RAVEN does not move. POE cowers.) Abandoned by those I love to be haunted by a demon bird. These visions would not appear if I were not alone. Why do those I need depart from me? My wife, Virginia. My savior. She and my mother-in-law, Muddy, providing the family I always

Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—’Til the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden boreOf “Never—

RAVEN: “Nevermore.”KING: (ENTERS UP RIGHT.)

But the raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door.Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linkingFancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yoreMeant in croaking—

RAVEN: Nevermore.MASQUE NARRATOR: (ENTERS LEFT.)

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressingTo the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core.This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease recliningOn the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o’er,But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamplight gloating o’er,She shall press, ah, nevermore!

MAD NARRATOR: (ENTERS UP LEFT.) Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer

Swung by seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent theeRespite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore.Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”Quoth the raven—

RAVEN: Nevermore.MADELINE: (ENTER UP RIGHT.) “Prophet!” said I, “Thing of evil! Prophet still, if bird or devil!

Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—On this home by horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—Is there—is there balm in Gilead? Tell me—tell me, I implore!”Quoth the raven—

RAVEN: Nevermore.FRIEND: (ENTERS RIGHT.) “Prophet!” said I, “Thing of evil! Prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—

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SYNOPSIS OF SCENESACT ONE

Scene One: Poe’s study.Scene Two: Old Man’s house in “The Tell-Tale Heart.”Scene Three: Prince Prospero’s castle in “The Masque of the Red Death.”Scene Four: Montresor’s house and catacombs in “The Cask

of Amontillado.”ACT TWO

Scene One: The darkness in “The Pit and the Pendulum.”Scene Two: Roderick Usher’s house in “The Fall of the House of Usher.”Scene Three: King’s castle in “Hop-Frog.”Scene Four: The Rue Morgue in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”Scene Five: Owner’s house in “The Black Cat.”Scene Six: Poe’s study in “The Raven.”

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”Quoth the raven—

RAVEN: Nevermore.PRINCE: (ENTER UP LEFT.) “Be that word our sign of parting, bird or

fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting.“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!Leave my loneliness unbroken! Quit the bust above my door!Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”Quoth the raven—

RAVEN: Nevermore.And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door.And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,And the lamplight o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor.And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floorShall be lifted—

POE: (Drops the quill and sits back.) Nevermore! (Smiles and closes his eyes, satisfied as the LIGHTS FADE to BLACK.)

END OF PLAY

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MADAME L’ESPANAYE ..........ghost of murdered woman n/aCAT’S OWNER .....................loves Black Cat; troubled drunk 39WIFE ..................................his wife 20EXTRAS ..............................as guests or dancers n/a

SETTINGTime: Nearly midnight.Place: Poe’s study and various scenes from his nightmares.

SET DESCRIPTIONPoe’s study is isolated in the corner of the stage UP RIGHT. A door in an angled wall leads OFF UP RIGHT. Above the door is a bust of Pallas. Just DOWNSTAGE of the door sits a large grandfather clock. A desk is scattered with papers. A chair sits behind the desk. A coatrack with a black coat stands back behind the desk at the intersection of the angled wall. To the LEFT of the coatrack is an open window with curtains. Next to the window is a side table with candles.

LEFT of the side table, the UPSTAGE shifts from the study into a grand hall. A large Gothic chest sits against the wall at CENTER, flanked by four chairs. Behind the chest, seven colored panels represent the seven rooms of Prince Prospero’s imperial suite.

A movable bed sits UP LEFT in front of a movable wall that mirrors the other angled wall opposite. This wall has a door leading OFF UP LEFT. The reverse side of the movable wall has a mantelpiece with a decanter, two glasses, and some books on it.

In Act One, Scene Four, a movable crumbling stone wall with an opening leading to a small recess is brought on. Chains hang on the wall inside the recess. Bones and broken stones line the outside of the wall. The same wall is used in Act Two, Scene Five, but it is not dressed with bones or chains.

PRODUCTION NOTES

PROPERTIES ONSTAGEGrandfather clock, desk with papers, desk chair, goblet, side table with candles, coatrack with black jacket, three chairs, chest (with colored costume pieces, fancy black mask, eight orangutan costumes, and chains), bed with sheets and a pillow, letter in a bottle (ACT TWO), one-eyed black cat mask, axe, books, two glasses, decanter.

PROPERTIES BROUGHT ON

ACT ONEScene One: Candle (POE) Handkerchief with blood on it (VIRGINIA)Scene Two: Basket, lantern (MAD NARRATOR) Black sheet (RAVEN) Castle banners (GUESTS)Scene Three: Items to juggle (JESTER) Eight grotesque masks, dagger (PRINCE)Scene Four: Carnival hat with bells, bottle of wine (FORTUNATO) Stone wall with chains, broken stones, bones (RAVEN) Trowel (MONTRESOR)

ACT TWOScene One: Board, ropes (POE) Suitcase (FRIEND)Scene Two: Suitcase, letter (FRIEND)Scene Three: Goblets (MINISTERS) Torch (HOP-FROG)Scene Five: Penknife (OWNER) Stone wall with broken stones, feather/quill (RAVEN)

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ii 47

POE: DREAMS OF MADNESS

By ALLYSSA HYNES

CAST OF CHARACTERS(In Order of Appearance)

# of lines

POE ....................................tortured author 63RAVEN ................................strange avian visitor 10VIRGINIA .............................Poe’s wife n/aELIZA .................................Poe’s mother n/aFANNY ................................woman who raised Poe n/aMAD NARRATOR ..................disturbed traveling guest 48OLD MAN ............................kind and generous homeowner 24POLICE ONE ........................called in to investigate 34POLICE TWO .......................another 34RED DEATH DANCERS ..........at least two masque revelers n/aWIDOW ...............................of the Red Death; wears black 16BLUE GUEST .......................reveler; wears blue 6PURPLE GUEST ...................another; wears purple 6GREEN GUEST ....................another; wears green 5ORANGE GUEST ..................another; wears orange 6WHITE GUEST .....................another; wears white 7VIOLET GUEST ....................another; wears violet 5PRINCE PROSPERO .............leader of the revel 20MASQUE NARRATOR ............guest at the revel 16JESTER ...............................Prince’s entertainer 7HOODED FIGURE .................Red Death; uninvited guest n/aMONTRESOR ......................seeks revenge 34FORTUNATO ........................wine connoisseur 29FRIEND ...............................Roderick’s childhood friend 31RODERICK ..........................suffers a mental affliction 28MADELINE ..........................his ailing twin sister 2KING ..................................cruel ruler 18SEVEN MINISTERS ..............king’s supporters 3HOP-FROG ..........................entertainer with an unusual gait 15TRIPPETTA ..........................his friend; dancing entertainer 2BLACK CAT .........................wears a black mask n/aDUPIN ................................clever detective 14

SOUND EFFECTSEerie music, creaking, heartbeat, faster and louder heartbeat, louder heartbeat, heartbeat wanes, faint heartbeat, single heartbeat, masquerade music, clock chimes, festive music, clock strikes midnight, iron grating, thunder, wood breaking, house crumbles and crashes down, dance music.

LIGHTING EFFECTSSliver of light from lantern, pendulum shadow swinging and swinging closer, flash of lighting, fire burns.

COSTUME SUGGESTIONSPOE wears a nightshirt with a black jacket over it. The GUESTS are dressed in the various colors denoted by their names. WIDOW wears a black dress with a necklace with a large ruby pendant. The HOODED FIGURE wears a death mask and a long blood red robe. When GUESTS remove their masks, some have blood-splattered faces. MADELINE wears white robes that become blood-stained. MADAME L’ESPANAYE’S clothes are covered in blood from her throat being slashed. The COURT changes into orangutan costumes. BLACK CAT wears all black and a black cat mask. She changes into a one-eye black cat mask and then all black with a single patch of white fur.

SPECIAL EFFECTSCreating the pendulum, fire, and specified shadows onstage as lighting effects is a simple suggestion done easily with the use of a projector. However, if projections aren’t possible, these effects can be done manually as well. The pendulum can be created onstage as a mechanical piece that can be hung from the flies or manually wielded by actors onstage. The chandelier can be lowered and raised using a simple pulley rig. Similarly, cutouts or other lighting tricks can be used to create the fire and shadows, etc. for the chandelier effect.

FLEXIBLE CASTING and CAST SIZERAVEN, MAD NARRATOR, POLICE, MASQUE NARRATOR, HOODED FIGURE, GUESTS, JESTER, DANCERS, MONTRESOR, FORTUNATO, FRIEND, KING, HOP-FROG, MINISTERS, and BLACK CAT can be portrayed by any gender with only minor adjustments to the script.

The only roles in every scene are POE and RAVEN. The remaining roles can be played by individual actors for a large cast of forty-two or easily grouped together and played by a cast as small as thirteen. The number of GUESTS and MINISTERS can be decreased and lines reassigned to accommodate a smaller cast. Similarly, while a total of eighteen characters gather on stage to recite “The Raven” in ACT TWO, Scene Six, some stanzas can be redistributed for fewer actors.

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By Allyssa Hynes

© Copyright 2018, Pioneer Drama Service, Inc.

Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that a royalty must be paid for every performance, whether or not admission is charged. All inquiries regarding rights should be addressed to Pioneer Drama Service, Inc., PO Box 4267, Englewood, CO 80155.

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1. The full name of the play2. The full name of the playwright3. The following notice: “Produced by special arrangement with

Pioneer Drama Service, Inc., Denver, Colorado”

48

SET DESIGNS

*Set Change with Movable Wall

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