The PBS series Mystery! enjoyed a long and successful run from 1980-2006. The anthology series drew from British mystery and crime material and was one of the network’s more popular titles.
The show introduced American audiences to such titles as Rumpole of the Bailey, Inspector Morse and Prime Suspect. The show no doubt also introduced many viewers to the works of American author and illustrator Edward Gorey.
Gorey’s drawings are reminiscent of wood cuts, and his style is instantly recognizable. Delightfully macabre, Gorey’s pen and ink illustrations create a world of sinister characters, odd creatures and general spookiness. Imagine landing in a neighborhood where all the families are The Addams Family and you’re on the right trail.
It’s a world of dreadful deeds and horrible happenstance portrayed with a dry wit that finds plenty of humor in horrid happenings.
Gorey Stories is a cabaret-style entertainment that brings the author’s tales and signature visual style to the stage. Jobsite’s previous presentations of Gorey Stories in 2007 and 2012 enjoyed sold-out runs, and this latest edition, which runs through Nov. 17 in Shimberg Playhouse, is sure to delight veteran Gorey fans and neophytes alike.
Most famous for his writings and illustrations, Gorey also had connections to the theater. He was one of the founding members, along with others such as William Carlos William and Thornton Wilder, of The Poets’ Theatre in Cambridge, Mass. The theater has a storied history of presenting performances of poetry and poetic drama.
Gorey won a Tony Award® for the costumes he designed for a 1977 revival of Dracula. The experience left him as joyous as one of his famously morose characters.
Gorey, who also designed the sets for Dracula, dismissed the production as absurd. “I don’t know what everybody saw in it, but it was a big hit,” Gorey said.
Of his own work, he said, “I’m only too conscious of not being a real set designer or a real costumer designer or a real anything. Giving me a Tony Award® for eight tacky little costumes, I felt, was more of an insult than anything,” adding with a laugh that it was “the cross I have to bear.”
The quote is vintage Gorey, funny, dismissive and self-deprecating all at once. Famously reclusive, Gorey may have been put off by the attention a hit Broadway show and a Tony Award® brought him.
He was equally as dismissive of the Mystery! title sequences, which arguably gave him his greatest exposure. The storyboard he submitted would have taken 10 minutes, a bit much for a 75-second sequence.
He eventually handed over his illustrations which were used by PBS animator Derek Lamb to create the memorable animated piece. “I had very little to do with it,” Gorey claims.
Gorey, then, is not one to sing his own praises. Spend an evening with Gorey Stories, though, and you just might become a member of Gorey’s choir of devotees.
