To satisfy their capstone project for the Performance, Production and Community major here at Hamline, senior Eden Fahy decided to direct a 105-year-old one-act play by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Aria da Capo.” Despite only an approximately 35-minute run time, this century-old production presents a complete cyclical allegory for the human condition, and how easily friends can be set against each other under pressure from authority, whether that be structural or interpersonal.
“What’s striking about [“Aria da Capo”] is that it uses so many examples from very common tropes that we still see today in politics, society and culture, but it was written in 1919 … It is still relevant, and it’s screaming at us that it’s still relevant,” Fahy said. “We divide ourselves and turn against each other and not only is that silly but it’s unsustainable in the long run … The heart of this story is that allegory, of what we do to each other and how we see our common man as enemies unrightfully, based on things that aren’t real.”
In contrast to the themes of isolation in the play, fellow Hamline students were responsible for the vast majority of design elements in this show, including lighting (designed by sophomore Finnley Abbott), scenic (junior and Editor-in-Chief Aiden Lewald), sound (senior and Visuals Editor Logan McGaheran) and makeup (first-year Liam Schrom), and all aid in getting the message of the show to audiences. Lighting may isolate or bring characters together in a scene, makeup, costumes and scenic elements provide some particular fourth-wall breaking moments throughout the piece to direct an audience’s attention more inward and sound provides further submersion into the world of the play.
All of these elements came together with the student cast and crew to form the production as it plays, an incredible opportunity for Hamline student designers to get a taste of what it is like to work on a production in “the real world.” Fahy described what it was like to work so closely with other students throughout the heavily taxing but immensely rewarding process of creating a show;
“I felt proud to have a lot of what I’ve learned in school already to be incredibly helpful, but in the gray areas I’ve felt so grateful to be able to look around and see all these people, whether it be student designers or faculty and staff, who were able to tell me ‘this is exactly how this needs to go.’” Fahy said. “You can’t learn without failing, but it sure does help when you’re failing in front of friends and peers and they pat you on the back, get you back up and push you to the finish line. I felt incredibly supported and grateful.”
Fahy’s production of “Aria da Capo” blurs the lines between actor and character and audience and stage. One of the characters, Cothurnus (played by sophomore Asher Gettings), remains seated in the audience for the majority of the performance, handing off his prompt book to the audience member beside him to rise and enter the playing space manipulating certain elements of the scene and interacting with characters on stage, only to return to his original seat in the house.
Cothurnus interrupts the opening scene between Pierrot and Columbine (junior and News Editor Alex Bailey and junior Maggie Rose Paoli) set at a table covered with a decadent feast, demanding they leave the stage and calls the two shepherd characters — Thyrsis and Corydon (senior Anna Deibert and junior Maria Garcia) — who enter the space as their “actor” selves, wearing headphones, carrying water bottles and missing costume pieces for their characters. As they are told by Cothurnus to begin their scene, they quickly improvise their set with pieces originally meant for the characters on stage before them.
The shepherds’ portion of the play begins with the two in an embrace, which is quickly contrasted by the distance created by the constructed wall of ribbons created for their “game.” Even as they attempt to reconnect over the wall, the story takes a dark turn at the hands of Cothurnus, who turns them against one another, editorializing the characters' decisions, giving one water and the other a collection of colorful gems. As the shepherds continue to argue, they slowly lose costume pieces, returning to their base “actor” selves by the climax of the scene. Concluding with the two lovers killing each other over the rigged resources.
Cothurnus calls on the stage crew to reset the table overtop the two dead lovers, and for Pierrot and Columbine to begin their scene again. When Columbine shrieks, noticing the two lying underneath the table, Cothurnus simply tells her to hide them with the tablecloth. “The audience will forget,” Cothurnus says, before exiting the stage.
“Aria da Capo,” and this last line from Cothurnus in particular, invites the audience to reflect on their own roles in the perpetuation of cycles of violence. Fahy hopes that this discomfort of being put in the spotlight by the antagonist of the show will prompt action on the part of her audience.
“I hope that you can come see the show, you can feel angry and upset, and I hope that you know that that feeling is a sign that you need to do something … If you’re going to take anything from this, it is [that] it is not sustainable to hate each other, we will die if we continue to hate each other as much as we do,” Fahy said. “This doesn’t have to be this cyclical, it doesn’t have to be this hopeless, and truly of all the structures in place that are made to bring us down, there are also structures in place already that we have time to save that can push us back up … If you don’t have [the resources to volunteer or donate], just be kind to people, and be loving.”
