2015 | Enoch Pratt House – Maryland Center for History and Culture

Added to the Fall Remount of The Mesmeric Revelations! of Edgar Allan Poe, we feel that The Stranger deserves a separate mention because it influenced so much of our work to come.

A handful of guests each evening are invited to climb the servants’ stairs and enter the private room where The Stranger resides. A private show-within-the-show, The Stranger was a secret and personal mediation on history and loss. The Stranger would mop scraps of paper on the floor into a circle. Each were replicas of historical documents related to the stories told by The Stranger. After channeling a first-person account ending with the the loss of a loved one, the guest would be invited to write down the name of someone they had lost.

The Stranger’s guest would then be led to a separate room where the guest added their name to a wall containing many others. Many found their encounter with The Stranger deeply moving.

After the closing of Mesmeric Revelations, the cast gathered to complete the ritual. Each name left on the Stranger’s wall by audience members was read aloud and ceremonially burned. It was yet another reminder that we had created something that had extended well beyond any single performance.

Performers

Martha Robichaud (pictured), Susan Stroupe

Creators

Martha Robichaud, Glenn Ricci, Susan Stroupe, Michele Minnick