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Johnny Mercer, Edgar Allan Poe Together at Last; "Poe and All That Jazz" Through Nov. 3 Charter Theatre 202-333-7009

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From: The Washington Post
Date: 20021025
Author:Dan Via

A MAN WRITES a play probing the psychology of Edgar Allan Poe using Poe's own words. Fair enough. He then incorporates love songs by jazz composer Johnny Mercer as a kind of Greek chorus, framing and commenting on the action. Surely an explanation is in order.

Playwright Peter Coy gives it a shot: "Poe's character is very complicated: He was stuck in childhood because his mother died when he was not quite 3 years old. He constantly was revisiting his mother in one form or another in his writing, and in his personal life in the women that he would fall in love with," Coy says. "The music in ...

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