The Tell Tale Heart

    For my final project, I want to do an adaptation of "The Tell Tale Heart," by Edgar Allen Poe. This is a short story about a man who killed an old man, because he believed his eye was evil. At the end of the short story, the killer thinks he hears the mans heart beat through the floor boards, so he tells the cops what he did. I would need 4 characters: 2 cops, the killer, and the old man. For this adaptation I would focus first on the killer and the old man. I would show their relationship to each other. The killer, which is not yet known to the audience will be extremely nice to the old man. This will make everything creepier and darker. The killer would also have internal monologues, where he explain why he would want to kill the old man (the creepy and evil eye.)  In order to show this I would dim the lights on the stage and have a spotlight on the killer. So, the audience will be able to see both sides of him: nice and evil.
 
     Later in the play I would show the killer killing the man, and putting him under an object. After the man is dead I would have the cops come in the house. I would then use the sound affect of a heart beat, which only the killer would be able to hear. During this scene the cops will be the only ones talking. The killer will just have facial expressions, and freaking out to the sound affect.

   The props needed would be simple. A couple of couches for the people to sit on and talk. This is where the killer would talk to the cops, and the old man. I would also need a dresser like object in the side to put the man into. This is where mostly everything would be going on. I think by making the staging simpler, the affect will be more dramatic and therefore leading to a more eerie feel to the play.

    This adaptation would be a fun thing to do, because it is different and mysterious. For the recent plays we have done whimsical, and out of the ordinary things. However, this requires people to be more serious and less comical.  So, we would have to learn to use different emotions, and to portray different kinds of characters that we have not done before. Also, this play requires a lot of expression. For example, the killer will not have as many lines when the cops are there, but you would have to see the fear in his face when he hears the sound of the mans heart. In the other plays we did, it was the lines and actions that made it comical or got the mood across to the audience. However, a large aspect of this is the facial expression, because they set the tone for the whole play. Overall, I think this would be a different and innovative project.