On Stage

By George Hall

“Carcosa” a haunting masterpiece

This reviewer was lucky enough to be present at the premiere of “Carcosa, or the Queen and the Stranger”, a 2 act play by Talbot Estus, the renowned novelist, performed by ‘the Group’ at the Scala Theatre in Charlotte Street.

Though short, and in many ways hard to describe, the play contained many momments of truly haunting beauty and deep insight into the nature of humanity and its relationship to the divine. Indeed it would not be hyperbole to say that the work contains truths so profound that they could be capable of changing ones view of life itself.

The performances, aside from the radiant Hannah Keith, as Queen Cassilda, are as good as can be expected by an amateur troupe, but they are magnified by the sheer depth and poetic vision of Estus’ script, whose vision of a city, trapped in stagnation, whose ennui is shattered by the arrival of a masked stranger, the herald of the great and terrible King In Yellow, will remain with this reviewer forever.

To quote Cassilda’s song, “songs that the Hyades shall sing, where flap the tatters of the King, must die unheard in Dim Carcosa.”