Aldergrove Secondary school's drama department is bringing a pair of plays to their stage this month.
The main production is a vintage play written by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Millay wrote all her plays in verse.
Millay’s plays can be divided into romances and political plays. It is ironic that her best-known play, Aria da Capo, is a political allegory, while her reputation as a poet suffered for writing anti-fascist poetry in the late 1930s and for participating in the American propaganda effort during World War II.
Millay’s Aria da Capo is a one-act expressionist morality play divided into three parts. The characters are Thyrsis and Corydon, young shepherds; Pierrot, an artist; Columbine, a young woman; and Cothurnus, stage manager and the Masque of Tragedy.
An unusual play structurally, a pastoral bookended with a harlequinade, it is unique in that it was perceived by most to be an anti-war statement, and yet can also be seen as an more universal portrayal of the human condition.
The play defies being set in a given time period and the playwright allows juxtapositions within the play to speak louder than the writing of any political statements could have accomplished.
The characters are portrayed as being controlled by a script not of their own making, and yet ultimately prove to be powerless to step away from it.
The other short play is a silent pantomime written by Aldergrove's drama instructor and director Mike McLaughlin, called Stool.
Curtain is at 7 p.m., Tuesday, May 17 to Friday, May 20 at the Aldergrove Secondary dramnasium. Tickets are $5 at the door.
KURT LANGMANN PHOTOS
Sydney Kadagies, Natalie Pham and Penny Shogan will play the roles of Corydon, Thyrsis and Cothurnus in Aldergrove Secondary school's production of Aria da Capo, May 17-20 at the school's dramnasium.
Ashley Moore, Nick Fleming, Hunter Denommee and Queenie Le will play the roles of photographer, the convict, ringleader and guard #2 in Aldergrove Secondary school's production of The Stool, May 17-20 at the school's dramnasium.