A Few Questions for Jennifer Restak
A troubled patient with a transplanted eye takes on the tormented vision of a murderer (from whom the eye was removed after execution). As a teenager in the late 1920’s, Tennessee Williams wrote this ghoulish tale in the manner of Edgar Allan Poe, probably hoping to sell the story to a pulp magazine. It wasn’t published until 2015. The Festival’s unsettling adaptation is the brainchild of Jennifer Restak and Alex Zavistovich, Artistic Director of the National Edgar Allan Poe Theatre of Baltimore.
Q: You’ve wanted to adapt this story for a while. In what way does it speak to you personally?
JR: To me, that feeling of unease around whether one’s experiences will be believed. The internal struggle between wanting to rationalize a horror as due to something material—a lack of sleep, one’s imagination run wild—versus knowing the stark reality of it in one’s bones despite all unlikelihood. That’s just the scariest! Yes, our imaginations are capable of running away with us, but what if our terror is in fact real?
Q: What have you learned in rehearsal that was unexpected?
JR: Well, to dispel any possible doubts about demons’ special powers, we have confirmed that demons shape-shift! You’ll see. We’ve been exploring a subtext around the struggle a woman faces when seeking medical treatment. Women have been considered overly emotional and even prone to “hysteria”, a word that’s used in this story to chilling effect. While playing with adding a moment after the “credits” to further titillate our audience we’ve learned we’ve got a possible sequel! We’ve identified more than a few moments where we can wink a bit at the horror trope -- and fright-delight! Lastly, we’ve come up with our band name: “Shriek Tableau.” It’s our shorthand for a moment of macabre stillness we’ve created, but we think we could probably slay an open mic.
Q: This is an installation and a performance, yes? Is there a word for that? Could you describe what you have in mind?
JR: Yes, this is a multimedia performance -- using movement, sound and video design, found objects and sculpture in order to spark our audience’s imaginations and open up to them several means of interpreting and responding to the text.
Q: What, as a Poe afficionado/expert/virtuoso do you see when you look at Tennessee Williams’s writing?
JR: Besides their shared penchant for highly wrought characters, and affinity for drama? Both writers explore the reaches of horror, not only in the physical realm but in the metaphysical realm as well: in this particular story, and in Poe’s work, both writers address the unanticipated consequences of technology pushed to its most extreme limits.
