OUTSTANDING MUSIC AND LYRICS
It is the beating of his hideous heart!
louder!
louder!
louder!
louder!
chilling tale of murder and madness
resembled that of a vulture -
- not destroyed - not dulled them.
a musicabre
Protagonist: Danny Ashkenasi
Cellists: Tara Chambers
Maria Bella Jeffers
Ella Toovy
"Could a madman have been as wise as this?" demands the protagonist of Edgar Allan Poe's chilling story The Tell-Tale Heart. Fed up with his neighbor's "vulture eye," he assiduously murders him, only to be haunted by the ghostly beating of the dead man's heart. As the presumed lunatic, performer and composer Danny Ashkenasi is certainly wise, and he has adapted Poe's suspenseful yarn into a brief but intense "musicabre," a well-honed and deliciously creepy chamber piece.
Accompanied by three cellists (Ella Toovy, Tara Chambers, and Maria Bella Jeffers), who surround him as they anchor the right, left, and back edges of the bare stage, Ashkenasi, wearing a silky red bathrobe, turns Poe's text into a sort of sadistic form of Masterpiece Theatre. With just a chair as set and prop, he paces and flails, only to return to a seated position, legs properly crossed. Smug in his repose, his genteel appearance makes his reported activities only more horrifying. He alternately speaks and sings the story, and his voice, which has moments of considerable power, is a bit raw around the edges, a sandpapery effect that further betrays his unease.
Contributing to the New York International Fringe Festival for the third year in a row, Ashkenasi has written a dense score for his three proficient instrumentalists, and the songs percolate with atonal arpeggios and screechy scales. In "True, Nervous," the opening song, he jumbles Poe's words to create a lyric pattern that pops with impending doom. The cellists feverishly pluck and saw at their instruments to match his emotional state, later creating the ominous pulse of the dead man's heart. The final searing notes evoke the sound of frantic scribbling, the scrambling of a doomed man trying to escape from a trap.
The protagonist claims his perceived madness is only an "overacuteness of the senses," and Ashkenasi's adaptation—along with David L. Carson's sharp direction—keenly illustrates the heightened sensory state of a man on the edge. Wise or mad (and maybe both), The Tell-Tale Heart is a spooky glimpse into a darkly tinted world.
"In Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart' Danny Ashkenasi composed a 3 cello chamber arrangement that elicits the emotions and heightened sound effects of a 'nervous' not madman who can't bear an old man's blue vulture eye or telltale heartbeat. Danny Ashkenasi is not only a riveting storyteller but an astounding composer as well. 'Happy Face' "
with a film over it.
had stalked
with his black shadow
before him,
and enveloped the victim.
- nervous
- very, very
dreadfully nervous
I had been and am;
Edgar Allen Poe’s "The Tell-Tale Heart" lends itself perfectly to a solo performance. The story, told in the past tense, with its protagonist all the while claiming he is not mad, is highly dramatic. But can it make a good musical performance? After seeing The Tell-Tale Heart: a musicabre, the answer is YES! More a one-person modern chamber opera than a “musical” this is a tight, musically wonderful 45 minute piece. With music by Danny Ashkenasi (who also performs the role) and three cellists (Tara Chambers, Maria Bella Jeffers, Ella Toovy), this is a refreshing, tense and entertaining evening. While Ashkenasi might not have the most appropriate vocal talents for a theater piece wholly reliant on singing this only serves to better the verisimilitude of the creepy, murderous hero of this tale. It won’t be soon that I forget the cello thumping heartbeats of Poe’s tale. Fringe Rating: 8 (out of 10)
- Kyle Ancowitz:
There is a lot of genuine artistry on display in this musicabre that shouldn't be missed ... As adapter, performer, and composer, Ashkenasi plainly posesses a broad array of talents... The outstanding feature of the production is the original score, performed with sensational flair by three cellists, Ella Toovy, Tara Chambers, and Maria Bella Jeffers. The tone nimbly and thrillingly shifts from dark romance to horror-film themes to ingeniously rendered sound effects, like white noise and the indispensable thundering heartbeats. There's even one number (where the narrator invades the victim's bedroom with superhuman sloth) which I can only describe as "Gothic Swing."
[The Tell-Tale Heart - a musicabre] gets your blood pumping ... [Ashkenasi] often thrillingly evokes everyday lunacy, finding a creepy (yet intriguing) sexual satisfaction from the murder that most performers might miss; the drained, contented look on his face after smothering the old man is really something to see ... [His singing is] precisely pitched musically and emotionally ... If a cellist playing pizzicato isn't the ideal orchestral representation of a heartbeat, I don't know what is ... As those fiercely plucked strings ring throughout the tiny Studio at the Cherry Lane, you feel just as Ashkenasi's narrator does when he imagines he hears an old man's heart beating feverishly during the last seconds of his life; crushingly guilty, yet also exhilerated, as if you too, are about to commit a murder.
james@jvmiller.com
or Danny Ashkenasi 718 789 1149
dragonfrog@msn.com
for FringeNYC 2005's "Beyond":
"Mr. Ashkenasi's music [has] dimensionality and touches of poignancy. "
- Jeremy Eichler, New York Times.
"The score is lovely" - P.F., Village Voice
"This show is all about Danny Ashkenasi's remarkable abilities as composer and director. ... [His] melancholic, joyous, and, at times, darkly hilarious composition ...suffuses the show with [an] operatic, and cosmic, spectacle."
- Ross Peabody, NYtheatre.com
"Richly musical and gorgeous to the ear" - Mathew Murray, Talkin' Broadway.com
for FringeNYC 2004's "The Song of Job 9:11":
"Moving. Compelling. A powerful testament ... culminating in a cathartic finale."
- Elias Stimac, Backstage
"The piece promises musical beauty, and delivers. From classical to modern jazzy pop, the score runs the spectrum to properly evoke the many emotions of the piece."
- Jena Tesse Fox, BroadwayWorld.com
The following are unsolicited testimonials (reprinted by permission) I received via email after the January '06 workshop performances of "The Tell-Tale Heart - a musicabre" at The Metropolitan Playhouse. - Danny Ashkenasi
"Dear Danny,
You don't know me, but I attended, with my friend Lisa Bostnar, your performance tonight of The Tell-Tale Heart. We found the piece mesmerising, haunting and brave. The music was lean, deep and evocative. We left very stimulated, and as a playwright (me) and actress (she) we were very impressed and grateful for the evening.
Bravo! It was truly an inspiring piece."
Suzanne Stout - Writer & Lisa Bostnar - Actress
"Every morning I choose one thing to write about from the day before in my gratitude diary. Here's the entry done Monday morning:
Danny Ashkenasi's Tell-Tale Heart. He has done an exquisite job bringing every nuance of the archetypal Poe short story to life. His every glance and gesture as the dreadfully nervous protagonist make us see both his horror and humanity. The music he wrote for three cellos and voice [is] the exactly right accompaniment as the madman tells his tale and the dead man's heart reverberates"
Sally Campbell - Retired Librarian
"I had a chance to listen to the CD of Tell-Tale Heart this weekend, and am blown away by it. The dramatic pacing is so assured, the cello writing is so strong and so absolutely on target dramatically at every moment, and [Ashkenasi's] performance is amazing"
Conrad Cummings - Julliard Composition Professor
"Danny,
Nice Work! Since it can be helpful to have it reviewed, I wrote a short one:
Danny Ashkenasi has composed a musicabre that draws the audience closer to the experience of delusion so central to Poe's art. He tells "The Tell-Tale-Heart" in song accompanied by 3 impressionist cellos, which at times participate in the creation of the illusion haunting the murderer as he reates his grisly tale. With a compelling combination of gesture, lyric and score Ashkenasi turns his audiences into accomplices better able to appreciate the murderous mind."
Tom Goodrich - PH.D. Candidate
