5.2.14 – Red-Eye to Havre de Grace is a sneaker of a hit show down at New York Theater Workshop. Written, directed, and designed by Thaddeus Phillips, developed and produced by his company Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental, it’s an intimate 90-minute spectacle for four performers – the brothers who composed and perform the music, David and Jeremy Wilhelm; Ean Sheehy, who plays Edgar Allen Poe in the crazed last days of his life, taking train rides up and down the Eastern seaboard trying to promote his essay on the meaning of life, “Eureka”; and Alessandra L. Larson, who plays the ghostly dancing figure of Poe’s beloved dead wife Virginia without speaking a word. The music and the staging are surprising, witty, and theatrically inventive. The show falls in the category of non-traditional musical, a la Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 or The Adding Machine. For me, it was a cool introduction to this Thaddeus Phillips person, definitely someone to keep an eye on. And for gay guys with a taste in bears, Jeremy Willhelm in his park ranger uniform (below presents a new erotic ideal.
May 5, 2014 at 6:22 pm
Poe “trying to promise his essay on the meaning of life . . .” I’m guessing you mean “finish.” Anyway, thanks for the well-crafted review.