The Black Cat and Other Plays by Edgar Allan Poe by Lance Tait (review)

In his second book of theatrical adaptations based on Poe works, Lance Tait has modified some better-known and some lesser-known stories into one-act plays for a smaller cast, taking care there are enough parts for women. With this varied mix, Tait reminds us Poe is a man of letters and not necessarily the “master of the Macabre” that pop culture would have us believe. Even though the stories he selects are full of murder, mesmerism, and hauntings, they also reflect Poe’s humor, caustic wit, and eruditeness.

The Purloined Letter is based on the third of Poe’s three detective stories featuring C. Auguste Dupin, the other two being “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.” “The Purloined Letter” is the only one of the three to take place in a confined space and lends itself well to a one-act play.

Poe considered “The Purloined letter” his most logical work, and in the battle of wits between Dupin and the blackmailing minister, the reader/viewer can see that while they are equally matched in intellect, Dupin has a higher moral code, and therefore the minister naturally loses the battle due to personal weakness.

Of all the plays in this book, this gets the most traditional treatment. The collection then moves from established narrative to stories that have been more reworked for the contemporary theatergoer.

Two additional characters are introduced in The Cask of Amontillado, helping out Fortunato and Montresor. Franco is a tenant of Montresor’s who is behind in his rent. Through their interactions during the first part of the play, we get an early glimpse of Montresor’s sociopathic and rather frightening nature, long before he walls up the unfortunate Fortunato in the catacombs, as he extracts the rent from the uneasy Franco. Franco is present during the first meeting of Montresor and Fortunato. This makes for an edgy departure from the original, as part of the horror of Fortunato’s being walled up alive is that absolutely no one knows what has become of him, save Montresor. Had this play been a whodunit, Franco would be a key witness as to who last saw Fortunato. As it is, he is merely a plot device in a narrative where the mystery is not “who done it?” but rather “why?”

The second additional character is the Strange Woman, who informs us and the pair several times that “some call me Palhon”—which is a river in the south of France, although Poe’s story never makes its European location clear. Montresor is French name, while Luchesi and Fortunato are Italian names; Amontillado is a Spanish wine. Tait firmly places the action in Nice or thereabouts. Anyone who has been to Nice will know how much it can sometimes feel like Italy, so this deviation from the long-held assumption that “The Cask of Amontillado” takes place in Italy only adds to the dimensions rather than detracts.

The Strange Woman claims to have drowned in the River Palhon and warns Fortunato, “No one saw you leave. No one will see you enter. He will ask you to be careful. Ha, ha, ha!” This adds to the mounting discomfort the reader/viewer is starting to feel, regardless of familiarity with the story.

The rest of the play more or less follows the narrative of the story, although this version is somewhat more distressing and daunting. We still get no answers as to motive, other than that Montresor blames Fortunato, irrationally, for their interchanging of fortunes.

A dramatic reinterpretation of The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar proves challenging, as the climax of the story features a body dissolving into a putrescent puddle of a corpse. How does one pull that off in a one-act play? Tait relies on the audience using its imagination as to the gory details as much as Poe relied...