by Macey Levin
Edgar Allan Poe is one of America’s most noted and respected authors. Known for his eerie and chilling short stories and poems, his use of language and emotion are often haunting. Daniel Hall Kuhn has brought his one man show Alone: Stories from Edgar Allan Poe to Bridge Street Theatre’s SoloFest which is now concluded. Kuhn has performed in national tours, summer stock, films and voice-over projects as well as having appeared in Bridge Street’s Lewiston and Shelley’s Shadow to much acclaim.
He has gathered six of Poe’s works some well-known, others somewhat more obscure. All of them are beautifully and effectively acted not merely recited. The soul of this piece is Mr. Kuhn’s work.
When the audience enters there is a digital picture of Poe’s upper body on a screen above the playing area. This photo comes alive as it blinks, nods, peers around the theatre and, when the audience is settled, recites Alone. This is a poem by a man who, even in childhood, has always believed he was different from everyone else, that there was an unnamed power that affected him and him alone.
There are digital performances of A Dream Within A Dream and The Bells, delivered in sensitive and knowing interpretations. A Dream… has the voice of a man who has been plagued by pain as he wonders if one’s life is just an illusion. He struggles with the loss of people and ideas that are integral to his life.
Daniel Hall Kuhn in “Alone: Stories from Edgar Allan Poe” – part of Bridge Street Theatre’s 2023 SoloFest. 
Daniel Hall Kuhn in “Alone: Stories from Edgar Allan Poe” – part of Bridge Street Theatre’s 2023 SoloFest. 
Daniel Hall Kuhn in “Alone: Stories from Edgar Allan Poe” – part of Bridge Street Theatre’s 2023 SoloFest.
People may have studied The Bells in school, but Kuhn brings an understanding to the work that stirs the audience’s deepest emotions. The poem travels through the progression of life – childhood, love, tragedy and death as the protagonist’s words are accompanied by the ringing of the “Bells, bells, bells” signifying the losses he has suffered.
Kuhn physically appears to deliver other Poe works. His interpretation of Annabel Lee gives us a man whose life has become empty and forlorn by the death of his beloved. It is a gut-wrenching rendering of this magnificent poem.
The Raven is a dark tale in which Kuhn embodies the narrator with a highly textured range of emotions as he succumbs to all-encompassing grief mourning his departed Lenore.
The only short story included is the classic The Tell-Tale Heart which is a fitting way to end the Poe program. This is also sensitively acted as the narrator evolves from his arrogant plotting to murder his aged benefactor and descends into hallucinations and madness.
Poe’s poetry and short stories have been read for almost two hundred years, but there is a profound difference between reading and hearing them performed by a highly talented actor utilizing a dramatic approach to the author’s ideas, words and language as he makes the literature come alive.
Alone: Stories from Edgar Allan Poe, very different from the preceding plays, was a glorious way for Bridge Street Theatre’s SoloFest to conclude.
We look forward to next season’s SoloFest!
Alone: Stories from Edgar Allan Poe; Written and performed by Daniel Hall Kuhn; Production Stage Manager: Kiara Vedovino; Running time: 50 minutes, no intermission. Ran March 31-April 2, 2023 at the Bridge Street Theatre, 44 West Bridge Street in Catskill, NY. https://bridgest.org/