Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of the Purple Demise is a narrative that positively resonates from its authentic revealed date in 1842 proper to the current day. It’s been given a makeover with a distinction by Toronto multi-hyphenate artist Saint Stella for a brand new present that can take the stage April 5 to 12.
Poe’s The Masque of the Purple Demise is a brief story that particulars the makes an attempt of Prince Prospero and his rich pals to cover from a lethal plague referred to as the Purple Demise. As they take shelter in Prospero’s abbey, they host a masquerade ball which stretches throughout seven rooms. Every of the seven rooms is embellished a distinct colors. As they social gathering the evening away, a determine cloaked in thriller, disguised as a sufferer of the dreaded plague, makes his manner by means of every of the rooms, leaving a path of loss of life in his wake.
Saint Stella: The Interview
Stella Kulagowski, AKA Saint Stella, is a fixture and an award-winning performer in Toronto’s vigorous burlesque scene, and a performer, producer, creator and motion instructor. Stella has produced bought out productions on the Toronto Fringe Competition, together with Lysistrata (2017), Carmilla (2018) and Mayhem at Miskatonic (2019), together with producing, choreographing, and performing in Ailing Met by Moonlight, a ‘Shakesqueer’ adaptation. They acquired an rising queer artist award from Buddies in Dangerous instances in 2020 and a Neighborhood One Rainbow Grant in 2024.
The play’s premise, and a actuality TV present, is what initially sparked the concept.
“I began type of serious about doing this play through the pandemic,” Stella begins, “once we had been all isolating, and terrified. The pandemic shone a highlight on the rising wealth discrepancies in our society. It’s now not about wealthy and poor, it’s about dwelling totally different existences.
It was a video they noticed of the Kardashians holding a celebration through the pandemic lockdowns that caught along with her, and the picture of the uber-wealthy as an aristocratic class that’s utterly disconnected from the realities that almost all of us reside with.
“I don’t suppose that we actually look as much as these folks anymore.”
A Cabaret Of Virtues
The music consists of each authentic songs and covers, covers all kinds of genres, and is an integral a part of the story.
“The present takes place, three-quarters of it, at a cabaret within the compound,” she says. There, seven totally different performers will take the stage, every with their very own act to current from break dancing to burlesque.
The solid contains:
- Stella Kulagowski (she/they): Author, Director, Performer, “Creation”
- Parham Rownaghi (he/him): The Founder “Darius”
- Rachel Manson (she/her): The Docent “Ariadne”
- Eli Holliday (they/them): “Love”
- Nailah Renuka (she/they): “Tolerance”
- Rennaldo Quinicot (he/him): “Delight”
- Rosalind Saunders (she/her): “Pleasure”
- Pleasure Thompson (she/her): “Neighborhood”
- Bryna Bella (she/they): “Generosity”
Every of the seven performers selected their very own piece. As preparation, Stella compiled a sort of track checklist that served as inspiration for the collaborative course of.
That is the place the story takes a flip from the unique, which provides solely loss of life and destruction for the partygoers. In Poe’s story, the seven rooms broadly symbolize the Seven Lethal Sins.
“Every of the characters symbolize a queer advantage,” Stella explains. The Seven Lethal Sins are was the virtues represented within the authentic Delight flag: Neighborhood, Pleasure, Generosity, Love, and Creation. Delight turns into dignity.
Toronto singer/songwriter/producer Yahenda produced the ambient music that performs through the present.
The story features a narrator, and a docent, somebody who’s a sort of private assistant to the narrator. There’s a little bit of ambiguity included into the story about whether or not or not the assistant is as responsible of degenerate skullduggery because the wealthy spectators. That’s the place the viewers comes into play.
“I just like the viewers to really feel participatory,” they clarify.
In the long run, the viewers votes on their guilt or innocence, and determines their destiny within the story. The present has been written with two potential endings, relying on the viewers’s verdict.
“I’m doing that character, and my act is about environmental degradation,” Stella says. “It’s been a extremely attention-grabbing course of. Contemplating what’s occurring the information…” The truth is, they report that the every day information has resulted in a large number of small modifications to the fabric as related conditions unfold in actual life.
“You don’t need it to occur, however boy is it fodder for artwork. Eager eyes and ears will see issues which can be very present,” Stella provides. “I might scream into the wind, or I could make artwork about it.”
Purple Demise is a distinction to Saint Stella’s ordinary work, which she describes as usually “gentle and joyful”. Though the story has been turned away from vices to virtues, its message remains to be about society and its inequities.
“I hope that folks depart with […] the cathartic factor, but in addition […] there isn’t a good reply,” they are saying, mentioning the latest homicide of a US medical insurance govt. “Are we resorting to homicide? Is that how unhealthy it’s gotten?” Stella wonders.
“This isn’t a great place we’ve arrived.”
- Discover extra particulars and tickets to the present at The Meeting Theatre [HERE].
Are you trying to promote an occasion? Have a information tip? Have to know the perfect occasions occurring this weekend? Ship us a word.
#LUDWIGVAN
Get the every day arts information straight to your inbox.
Join the Ludwig Van Toronto e-Blast! — native classical music and opera information straight to your inbox HERE.
Anya Wassenberg is a Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. She is an skilled freelance author, blogger and writing teacher.
