Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of the Pink Demise is a narrative that undoubtedly 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 may take the stage April 5 to 12.
Poe’s The Masque of the Pink Demise is a brief story that particulars the makes an attempt of Prince Prospero and his rich pals to cover from a lethal plague often known as the Pink 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 unique colors. As they occasion the night time away, a determine cloaked in thriller, disguised as a sufferer of the dreaded plague, makes his means by way 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 energetic burlesque scene, and a performer, producer, creator and motion instructor. Stella has produced offered 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 Unhealthy occasions in 2020 and a Group One Rainbow Grant in 2024.
The play’s premise, and a actuality TV present, is what initially sparked the thought.
“I began type of excited about doing this play in the course of the pandemic,” Stella begins, “once we have 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 completely different existences.
It was a video they noticed of the Kardashians holding a celebration in the course of the pandemic lockdowns that caught together 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 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 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 completely different performers will take the stage, every with their very own act to current from break dancing to burlesque.
The solid consists of:
- 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): “Group”
- Bryna Bella (she/they): “Generosity”
Every of the seven performers selected their very own piece. As preparation, Stella compiled a form of tune listing that served as inspiration for the collaborative course of.
That is the place the story takes a flip from the unique, which gives solely demise and destruction for the partygoers. In Poe’s story, the seven rooms broadly signify the Seven Lethal Sins.
“Every of the characters signify a queer advantage,” Stella explains. The Seven Lethal Sins are became the virtues represented within the authentic Delight flag: Group, Pleasure, Generosity, Love, and Creation. Delight 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 form 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.
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 extremely fascinating course of. Contemplating what’s happening the information…” In reality, they report that the day by 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 are very present,” Stella provides. “I may scream into the wind, or I could make artwork about it.”
Pink Demise is a distinction to Saint Stella’s regular work, which she describes as sometimes “gentle and joyful”. Though the story has been turned away from vices to virtues, its message continues to be about society and its inequities.
“I hope that folks depart with […] the cathartic factor, but additionally […] there isn’t any good reply,” they are saying, mentioning the latest homicide of a US medical insurance govt. “Are we resorting to homicide? Is that how dangerous it’s gotten?” Stella wonders.
“This isn’t a superb 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.