Providence theater

I went on that Lovecraft walking tour/theater event, and it was nice entertainment in the very places referred to in “The Call of Cthulhu,” much of which is set in Providence itself, you may recall.

There was also the strange quirk that my fellow “theater goers” thought all night that I was a planted actor. Instead of signing up on the web like everyone else, I was told last night by a cast member simply to show up at a certain address and pay cash. But she failed to inform her fellow actress of this, and thus there was a confused exchange between me and the starting point actress right at the beginning of the tour. It was purely an innocent confusion on both sides, but apparently it looked staged and theatrical to everyone else.

I had no idea of that until afterward. But throughout the tour, people were coming up and asking me questions about where I live, what I think about this or that aspect of Lovecraft, and so forth. I was wondering why I seemed so especially approachable to everyone tonight, but that was explained by the fact that they all thought I was part of the show.

This being Providence, the setting was unbeatable. The “Wilcox” character was actually sitting right in front of the Fleur-de-Lys building drawing Cthulhu on a pad of paper. (Apparently they asked to stage the scene inside the building itself, but the Fleur-de-Lys owners were completely un-cooperative. That seems small-minded and selfish to me. And purely from a business standpoint you’d think they’d want to promote the Lovecraftian mythology surrounding their building.)

My residence was apparently selected as a backup site for the “Shunned House” across the street, but in that case we’re talking about private homeowners, and I don’t blame them for not wishing to open their residence to all and sundry. As for my own residence, it was strange to observe a theatrical scene in here. The power of drama is remarkable. While I was here and listening to last night’s actress do her Spiel, this didn’t feel like my rightful residence, but like the Norwegian home of the murdered Gustav Johansen.

There was a crazy semi-lookalike of Lovecraft up in Prospect Park (which does have a gorgeous view of downtown Providence at dusk), and then a guy with an extremely convincing New Orleans accent posing as a fortune teller who knew Inspector Legrasse.

The conclusion came at a waterfront bar called The Wild Colonial, where most of the actors were assembled afterwards and fielded questions. A free drink came with the admission price. I asked for a glass of red wine, and was told that there were three choices, one of which was… *drum roll*… Louis Latour Pinot Noir. (Yes, that’s Bruno Latour’s family winery from Beaune in Burgundy.)

There was one other strange thing about the night. At one point as we were walking (the actors lurked at various points in Providence) a car went by, driven by a swarthy unshaven man in a baseball cap, who shouted “Cthulhu Lives!” To our mild horror, we learned at the end that he had nothing at all to do with the show.

Given that druids and Greek Pagans are making a comeback elsewhere, I suppose it’s not impossible that the Cthulhu Cult and the Esoteric Order of Dagon might be alive in this part of the country.