Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of the Purple Demise is a narrative that undoubtedly resonates from its unique printed 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 buddies to cover from a lethal plague often known 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 adorned a unique colors. As they social gathering the evening away, a determine cloaked in thriller, disguised as a sufferer of the dreaded plague, makes his means by every of the rooms, leaving a path of dying in his wake.
Saint Stella: The Interview
Stella Kulagowski, AKA Saint Stella, is a fixture and an award-winning performer in Toronto’s full of life burlesque scene, and a performer, producer, creator and motion trainer. 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 Unwell Met by Moonlight, a ‘Shakesqueer’ adaptation. They acquired an rising queer artist award from Buddies in Unhealthy occasions in 2020 and a Neighborhood One Rainbow Grant in 2024.
The play’s premise, and a actuality TV present, is what initially sparked the thought.
“I began kind of fascinated with doing this play throughout 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 residing completely different existences.
It was a video they noticed of the Kardashians holding a celebration throughout 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 the majority of us stay with.
“I don’t assume that we actually look as much as these individuals anymore.”
A Cabaret Of Virtues
The music consists of each unique 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 completely different performers will take the stage, every with their very own act to current from break dancing to burlesque.
The forged 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): “Pleasure”
- 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 form of tune checklist that served as inspiration for the collaborative course of.
That is the place the story takes a flip from the unique, which gives solely dying and destruction for the partygoers. In Poe’s story, the seven rooms broadly characterize the Seven Lethal Sins.
“Every of the characters characterize a queer advantage,” Stella explains. The Seven Lethal Sins are become the virtues represented within the unique Pleasure flag: Neighborhood, Pleasure, Generosity, Love, and Creation. Pleasure turns into dignity.
Toronto singer/songwriter/producer Yahenda produced the ambient music that performs throughout the present.
The story features a narrator, and a docent, somebody who’s a form of private assistant to the narrator. There’s a little bit of ambiguity integrated 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 doable 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 very attention-grabbing course of. Contemplating what’s occurring the information…” Actually, they report that the day by 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 traditional work, which she describes as sometimes “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 individuals depart with […] the cathartic factor, but in addition […] there isn’t any good reply,” they are saying, mentioning the current homicide of a US medical health insurance govt. “Are we resorting to homicide? Is that how unhealthy it’s gotten?” Stella wonders.
“This isn’t an excellent place we’ve arrived.”
- Discover extra particulars and tickets to the present at The Meeting Theatre [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is a Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. She is an skilled freelance author, blogger and writing teacher.