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Stephen King Goes To The Theater: The Ghost Brothers of Darkland County

When we first saw the advertisement for The Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, we were pretty excited. A collaboration between John Mellencamp and Stephen King has all kinds of potential for coolness. Stephen King is a great storyteller, and for a rock musical in a southern gothic atmosphere, I can’t think of anyone who I’d rather have making the musical contribution than John Mellencamp (to clarify, he wrote the music, but didn’t sing it). The description of the show included the information that this collaboration had been thirteen years in the making. We were very intrigued, and made the tickets to the show our anniversary present to each other.

I am a huge believer in the power of live performance. I love storytelling and I love opera, and once you’ve seen those live, film provides only a pale imitation. I don’t think that is necessarily true of horror, though. Maybe it has something to do with the realism that a horror movie has to have to give you that emotional punch. So I wondered how that would present itself in a musical on stage.

The honest answer is that I’m really not sure whether this lives up to its billing as a collaborative horror musical. The music was tremendous, as I expected it would be, and the acting and singing were fantastic. Both the choreographer and whoever was in charge of lighting deserve awards. But… the plot? Character development? I think Stephen King was taking a nap.

The story is along these lines. In a small town in the South, a rift has developed between two brothers. One brother is an auto mechanic who plays in a local band, whose girlfriend, Anna, has just dumped him for the other brother, a writer who has just sold his first book. Their father, Joe, meets them at the family’s lakeside cabin to tell them the story of his own brothers as a warning. Decades earlier, his older brothers also turned against each other and both died tragically because of their differences over a girl named Jenna. Joe’s brothers and Jenna now haunt the cabin, providing commentary and acting out the backstory. There is a creature called The Shape hovering around the edges of events (and often stealing the stage– the actor took his part and ran with it), encouraging all the characters to act on their worst impulses.

The plot is pretty thin, in other words. On stage, sets are often pretty minimal, and that’s the case here. So realism isn’t really an option. You’ve either got to have action or character development to catch your audience. Spectacle, music, and talent (and this show has all three), can carry you pretty far, but to get really invested there has to be movement and change of some kind. And especially with horror, you have to be invested. But we never get to know the characters enough to find them sympathetic, or even care much about their troubles. None of them are particularly likable and their parts just don’t gel together. As a result, the final events, which actually were objectively really horrifying, didn’t pack the emotional punch of, say, the final events of Rigoletto, or Carmen. I feel like the actors made the most of what they were given to work with, particularly the Shape. Mellencamp’s music, played by members of his band, was great, and especially the women had great voices and stage presence (Anna in “That’s Who I Am”, Jenna in “Home Again”, and the boys’ mother, Monique, in “You Don’t Know Me”). Unfortunately, not even lighting that made it look like the actors were dripping in blood was enough to disguise the thinness of plot and character development.

I am likely to buy the musical’s soundtrack (especially as it has Sheryl Crow, Rosanne Cash, Kris Kristofferson, and Elvis Costello singing on it), and I’m not sorry I went, because I will be able to easily picture the acting that went along with the music, but I can’t say that I think either of us think this is a must-see live performance (although apparently many Stephen King fans disagree). It’s quite possible that as a film, set in the South with realistic detail, that many of the shortcomings of the live performance could be overcome… although, most likely at the expense of the Shape’s impact on the characters and scene. You can’t beat Mellencamp’s music live, though, and that, I think, was worth the price of the ticket.

Posted on October 21, 2013 by Kirsten, Reply

Teen Read Week: Guest Blog by Jason Henderson– John Polidori, Mary Shelley, and the Haunted Summer

Jason Henderson is the author of the Alex van Helsing books, about a fourteen year old descendant of the vampire hunter from Bram Stoker’s Dracula living in a boarding school near Geneva, who just might be the supernatural world’s James Bond. The first book depends a lot on the events of the Haunted Summer at Villa Diodati, where Mary Shelley, John Polidori, Lord Byron, and others decided to test their ability to write an original ghost story on a dark and stormy night.

I asked Jason if he would write a little about the Haunted Summer. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was not the only literary work to emerge from that party at the Villa Diodiati; John Polidori is largely unknown today.Except, apparently, in Texas, around Halloween, when you can go to a Polidori Pumpkin Party. Which would be a TOTALLY cool event for any library (or teen group) to hold. I know I want to go!

John Polidori, Mary Shelley, and the Haunted Summer

by Jason Henderson

My favorite Halloween Activity is something called Polidori’s Pumpkin Party, a major leaf-blown Autumn fiesta started in Texas of all places back in the 90s. We named it after a guy named Polidori; more on him later. But the idea of the party was this:

• Invite your friends to a Halloween Party

• Cost of admission: something creative. A story (keep it under ten minutes, guys), a painted mask, a cupcake if it’s creative

• Everyone has to sit at the hot seat and present without making a fuss about how their offering isn’t any good. If they start doing that, everyone should yell, DECLAIM! Until the person stops apologizing and reads.

• Repeat until everyone has presented.

The Polidori Party became a lifeblood of creativity for me and my friends both in school and after because it was an excuse to be creative, to have to be creative at least once in a year. “Are you ready for Polidori”? “I still have to write for Polidori”. Everyone spent time (often literally the day of the party, but that’s life) preparing. Hint: I really recommend making this part of your Halloween tradition.

Every Halloween I think of Polidori and his friends, who were generally considered the coolest kids in Europe, in the cold summer months of 1816. They were the original haunted story-slingers, brash and overconfiden,t and often brilliant.

I wrote about them in my first Alex Van Helsing book, and most of this recap in fact bears a strong resemblance to a talk given by Alex’s mentor, the motorcycle-riding super spy Mister Sangster. Mister Sangster has the benefit of teaching on the very lake where the group hung out—we can only imagine.

It is to me the perfect Halloween story, though it wasn’t actually Halloween. It was summer, and it was cold.

The party at the Villa Diodati in the summer of 1816—the Haunted Summer–consisted of five writers: Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, who were already quite famous; two young women writers, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (soon to be Shelley) and her half-sister Claire (whom Mary disliked so much that she doesn’t even mention her in the introduction to Frankenstein); and Byron’s doctor friend, Polidori, who wrote short stories. They were bored out of their heads, because although it was summer, there had been a massive volcanic eruption in Asia that had clouded the sky and made the weather everywhere cold and rainy. So Lord Byron issued each of them a challenge: write the scariest, most terrifying story you can.

In her introduction to the 1831 edition, Mary says the famous guys each wrote some minor pieces, and that Dr. Polidori had—and this is kind of fun—“some terrible idea about a skull-headed lady, who was so punished for peeping through a key-hole — to see what I forget — something very shocking and wrong of course.’”

I mean, we had to base our party on him.

Remember: they were all very young.

Lord Byron, on the run from creditors, was 28, Shelley was 24, fleeing his marriage, with his new 18-year-old mistress Mary; John Polidori was 21; and Claire was 18. After the summer which birthed The Vampyre, Childe Harold Canto IV, and Frankenstein, they didn’t last long, either. Polidori was dead in five years, Shelley a year later, and Byron two years after that. Within eight years, all but Mary and her sister Claire were dead. In between were tragedies no parent should ever endure, and they endured them again and again.

But in 1831, something about the record changed. When Mary was 34, she rewrote her masterpiece Frankenstein for a new edition. She promised her editor that the revisions would be minor, a few typo fixes here and there. But it wasn’t true—the 1831 Frankenstein was a clean-up job. It got rid of the messy politics of the earlier version, and, best of all, added her introduction, which told the story of the Haunted Summer, but cleaned that up, too: it eliminated Claire, by whom she was embarrassed, and most of all, changed what the attendants were writing about.

When I wrote the first Alex Van Helsing book, the crux of the story was that something about the change Mary made to when she was in her thirties was an attempt to hide something about what happened when she was a teenager. That there are secrets between the lines. I feel that way today, and it is true of my own books. So there are secrets inside secrets.

Here we are in October. Capture the spirit of that crew: Byron, Shelley, Wollstonecraft, Claremont, Polidori. What are the secrets you can reveal?

__________________

Interested in learning more about John Polidori?

Find out how to host a Polidori Pumpkin Party by visiting the Polidori Society’s website.

Check out The Vampyre, the influential novella he wrote during the Haunted Summer.
Polidori also appears in Veronica Bennett’s teen title Angelmonster, which is very well written.

For a more substantial account of the evening at the Villa Diodiati and the people who were there try The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler.

And, of course, there are Jason’s own books. In the spirit of the challenge at the Villa Diodiati during that Haunted Summer, take the time to celebrate your creativity this Halloween!

Posted on October 18, 2013 by Kirsten, Reply

Teen Read Week: Stories to Give You the Shivers

As I’ve said in the past, what better audience could there be for short stories than the teen audience? For every teen who loves hauling around gigantic tomes, there is another who prefers to consume reading material one small, satisfying, bite at a time. October is the season for short and scary stories, in my opinion– a fall campfire is the perfect occasion for the right tale, or a sleepover could involve tempting “Bloody Mary” out of the mirror. There are so many opportunities to fit a scary story in as we approach the day of the dead.

So here’s a short list of short story collections you (and by you I mean anyone, but especially teens) can check out if you’re seeking out a story to give you the shivers.

The Restless Dead: Ten Original Tales of the Supernatural, edited by Deborah Noyes. With authors like Kelly Link and Annette Curtis Klause contributing, you will surely find something here to give you the creeps.

Fear: 13 Stories of Suspense and Horror, edited by R.L. Stine. This collection has an interesting collection of writers, including F.Paul Wilson and Heather Graham, who write thrillers for adults, and Peg Kehret, who writes middle grade mysteries and suspense. So it’s not surprising that the collection is somewhat of a mixed bag– but there’s also quite a lot of variety!

All Hallows’ Eve: 13 Stories by Vivian Vande Velde. This is an individual collection, and again, these are stories of the supernatural and spooky rather than the gory. Vivian Vande Velde is a fantastic writer and this could be a good way to see if you like her stuff before trying out a longer work. And, of course, this collection is thematically about Halloween, so how could I leave it out?

Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link. One of the stories in this book, “The Wrong Grave”, is also in The Restless Dead, mentioned above. So if you tried that and liked it, definitely pick up Pretty Monsters. These are not typical scary stories, but they’ll definitely creep you out! Kelly Link is a favorite author of mine, and I really recommend this one.

Extremities: Tales of Death, Murder, and Revenge by David Lubar is his first venture into the young adult genre. We’re giving a copy away this week, that’s how good it is!

Ghostly Gallery: Eleven Spooky Stories for Young People edited by Alfred Hitchcock. This is just one of a series of short story anthologies that Hitchcock published in the 1970’s and that were available in libraries and through Scholastic book orders in the 1980s as well. It’s really a tragedy that these volumes and others like them are no longer in print, as most of the early exposure I had to scary stories was through these types of books.

Roald Dahl’s Book of Ghost Stories edited by Roald Dahl. You may think of Roald Dahl as a children’s author, but he also wrote for adults and really, even in his children’s books, proves that he is a master of the macabre. His choices here include many older, classic, ghost stories, from authors such as Sheridan Le Fanu, Edith Wharton, and Robert Aickman. These are literary horror stories, some quite frightening, so I’d recommend it for older teens.

The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural by Patricia McKissack, illustrated by Brian Pinkney. These stories have the eerie feeling of truth to them, possibly because of McKissack’s introduction, where she describes listening to the stories the adults around her told when she was a child. This is a Caldecott Award winner, and also a Coretta Scott King award winner, but beyond that, it’s just really good storytelling, made even better by the dramatic illustrations. I have this on Kindle, and I’ve got to say, this is one of the books that you really need to hold in your hands and see the artwork complementing the story across a double page spread, to truly appreciate. Don’t let the award for children’s book illustration fool you: this book is often used with and appreciated by middle school aged kids and older.

The Scary Stories Treasury: Three Books to Chill Your Bones, Collected From Folklore, edited by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Stephen Gammell. Make sure you have the books illustrated by Stephen Gammell. I don’t care how old you are, these are still scary. And I’m definitely not the only one to think so– read this article and you’ll see what an impact these books make.