Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of the Purple Loss of life is a narrative that positively resonates from its authentic 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 may take the stage April 5 to 12.
Poe’s The Masque of the Purple Loss of life is a brief story that particulars the makes an attempt of Prince Prospero and his rich mates to cover from a lethal plague generally known as the Purple Loss of life. 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 occasion the night time away, a determine cloaked in thriller, disguised as a sufferer of the dreaded plague, makes his method by means of every of the rooms, leaving a path of demise 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 In poor health Met by Moonlight, a ‘Shakesqueer’ adaptation. They acquired an rising queer artist award from Buddies in Unhealthy instances in 2020 and a Group One Rainbow Grant in 2024.
The play’s premise, and a actuality TV present, is what initially sparked the concept.
“I began form of interested by doing this play in the course of 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 not about wealthy and poor, it’s about residing totally different existences.
It was a video they noticed of the Kardashians holding a celebration in the course of the pandemic lockdowns that caught along with her, and the picture of the uber-wealthy as an aristocratic class that’s fully disconnected from the realities that almost all of us reside with.
“I don’t assume 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 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): “Satisfaction”
- Rosalind Saunders (she/her): “Pleasure”
- Pleasure Thompson (she/her): “Group”
- Bryna Bella (she/they): “Generosity”
Every of the seven performers selected their very own piece. As preparation, Stella compiled a type of music checklist that served as inspiration for the collaborative course of.
That is the place the story takes a flip from the unique, which affords solely demise 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 became the virtues represented within the authentic Satisfaction flag: Group, Pleasure, Generosity, Love, and Creation. Satisfaction turns into dignity.
Toronto singer/songwriter/producer Yahenda produced the ambient music that performs in the course of the present.
The story features a narrator, and a docent, somebody who’s a type 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.
Ultimately, 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 very fascinating course of. Contemplating what’s occurring the information…” Actually, they report that the each day information has resulted in a mess of small adjustments 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 might be very present,” Stella provides. “I may scream into the wind, or I could make artwork about it.”
Purple Loss of life is a distinction to Saint Stella’s typical 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 individuals go away with […] the cathartic factor, but in addition […] there is no such thing as a good reply,” they are saying, mentioning the current homicide of a US medical insurance govt. “Are we resorting to homicide? Is that how dangerous 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.
